Whoosh!

Did you hear that? That was the sound of my very last week of summer vacation flying by at the speed of sound, as I head back to work tomorrow. And, what a week it was! Mother nature was kind to us, and gave us day after day of glorious weather. We spent a bunch of days at the beach, just soaking it all in.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Sadie has suddenly lost almost all of her fear of the water, which is a mostly wonderful thing, as it is so great to see her enjoy the beach the way it is meant to be enjoyed (wearing yourself out in the water). It does mean that I need to pay closer attention to where she is at all times, though.

MaryBeth and her boys joined us down there yesterday, and once again, the kids had a blast. Eden is so determined to do whatever the big kids are doing, it is too cute to see. She kept lying down on the boogie board at the edge of the surf and looking perplexed when nothing happened. Eventually, she did kind of get it in the face with a far-reaching breaker and wasn't too thrilled about that. But, it didn't really curb her enthusiasm for the board. Her most favorite thing is to walk around the kiddie pool half leaning on, half walking the board around and humming the ABCs. Well, that and trying to beat up random little kids with the noodles.

Sadie's big news of the week is that she caught a fish, a real fish (two, actually)! Evan took her down to the Shark River inlet the other evening after dinner and she caught a red snapper and something else that I can't remember the name of. Her first fish! When they pulled in the driveway, it was late and I walked out to the car to meet them. Sadie was sound asleep but the moment Evan lifted her out of her carseat to bring her inside, she woke up and told me "I caught two fish that we could eat!!" She was so proud, as am I. Evan, of course, is over the moon. A fishing partner!

So, as I've written ad nauseaum, I am sad to see the summer end, but I'm trying to focus on some positives for going back to work. Here's what I came up with:

--Guaranteed quiet 'me' time each day
--I can get to the gym more regularly again
--I can resume riding my bike to work
--I can meet friends for lunch, and eat at establishments other than Applebee's and the Sunset Diner
--I can run errands without two kids in tow
--??

Please feel free to chime in and remind me of the positives of sitting in an office all day as opposed to sitting on the beach. Feel free to be creative!

In other news, I did the neatest thing last night. One of my friends invited me to a private party at this place Simply Dish up in Middletown. Basically, you go, drink wine and eat yummy snacks and socialize all the while putting together awesome meals that you take home and freeze. After two hours, I walked out of there with eight meals for my freezer. No prep work, no cleanup. I was really impressed, and am already thinking about hosting one myself later in the fall.

So, there you have it. I have some cute photos from the beach yesterday that I need to upload, but my cardreader isn't working, so I have to wait until I get to work to upload (hey! I just thought of another positive...;) ). All in all, I feel so fortunate to have had this summer and we have a lot of fun things planned already for the fall (neighborhood block party, a wedding, a night out in the city), so I know once I get into the swing of things, I'll really be looking forward to the next chapter of things.

Plus, you'll be reading a lot more from me again (all that quiet 'me' time, you know...), so until tomorrow...