"Getaway" From the Kid's Point of View

The girls snuggled with grandma during the T-Rex scene on Night at the Museum. (o:

Sarah's favorite thing about the whole beach trip, she said, was the ping pong table. We had a fun "game room" with our beach cottage that had a ping pong table. Sarah challenged each of us big kids to a few games of ping pong and it was nothing short of HILARIOUS. Chris and I laughed our heads off as more times than not, the games ended up being played off everything, BUT the table. It was especially fun because this made Sarah laugh hysterically. I was actually proud that she was doing this - she is such a perfectionist that usually playing something so horribly frustrates her. However, the fact that everyone else stunk at playing too probably made it easier to laugh at herself! Good times.

The minute grandma and grandpa arrived to our house on Wednesday, Sarah talked for about 4 hours straight. She had so many things to tell them about. It was pretty cute. She and Natalie and Angela showed grandma every inch of their rooms, every toy, every doll on their beds, etc. The car ride to the beach was never ending chatter in the back seat. I think a while after we arrived at the beach house Sarah took a breath.

I really enjoyed hanging out with Sarah on this trip and watching her with her grandparents. She is really growing up to be quite a fun young lady and so cute. She had cute jokes and observations and questions. I feel like she is growing right before my eyes and every once in a while it really hits me. Taking a minute to step back and watching her talk to someone else like she often talks to me, it was neat to get a glimpse of my growing girl.

Sarah was all about being brave and trying new things - she loves to "be brave". Sarah is a cautious girl and has many things that make her nervous - but she is trying to be a big girl and conquer these fears. Taunting the ocean while throwing rocks at it and playing chase with grandpa, "Is that all you've got?!" - for example. Then on the boat ride, which she was nervous about, she stayed at the bow almost the whole time and tried not to flinch when it bobbed up and down (I tried not to flinch either). She even held a crab with her bare hands from the crab ring she tossed! Another example: when she was gung ho about boogie boarding and her wetsuit - until she actually got in the water. Then the wind hit and that was it - no more even pretending to be brave. That darn wind just about did Sarah in. I am really proud of her for being our brave girl and trying to step out of her comfort zone to experience some new adventures.

Our favorite quote from Sarah on the trip was a comment to grandpa at the surf shop when he had just put on his wetsuit, "You look like Mr. Incredible, before he exercised!"

The best souvenir ever for all the girls had to be the ukeleles daddy found at the surf shop. Natalie and Angela refer to them as "uke-ladies". Each of the girls got one and grandma showed them a few chords she knew. One of my favorite memories was hearing Chris and the two girls make up their kooky rhymes using the 'my dog has fleas' tune that grandma uses to tune her ukeleles. One person would say a line like, "I can not hear" and then the second person would say something like, "Please lend and ear". Natalie cracked us up by using big words to rhyme like, "that souvenir" Another one that got some of us chuckling was Natalie's reply to "Please scratch my back". She replied, "ii-in the sack."

Natalie had some other funny things that made us laugh - like the way she would hug grandma with her arms and legs - like a baby monkey. This is a very unique Natalie thing - she does this so people will hold her and because she is a snuggle bunny. Grandma came up with a good nickname for Natalie because grandma ended up holding her this way a lot. She called Natalie her "vest"

One of grandma's favorite Natalie comments was on the drive down to the beach. Natalie was drawing some very interesting shapes and objects on her magna doodle. When grandma commented by saying, "you drew a lot of pretty things", Natalie looked at grandma from the corner of her eyes and very matter-of-factly said, "Art." before getting back to business.

Angela was NOT very happy when we were anywhere near the ocean. I worried the boat ride would do her in, but she did much better than expected. At the beach Angela wanted to be as far away from the crashing waves as possible. Poor thing. She was terrified. Another thing Angela did not like was the filtration/cleaning thing that floated around in the hot tub. We had to remove this every time because it scared her so much for some reason. Poor Angela got a stomach ache one night of our trip and moaned quite a bit. She told me that her tummy needed a baind aid. )o:

It wasn't all misery, however. Angela did like a lot of things on our trip too. She liked sleeping in a big girl bed and the freedom it allowed her to hop right out of bed, sometimes too many times. She enjoyed playing with the basket of seashells in our beach house and listening to the ocean in them. She was excited to find a "Patrick" or star fish and a "Mr. Krabs" (references from SpongeBob) when we did some tidepooling. And she loved getting to eat bubble gum Tillamook ice-cream on the way home.