Happy on The Inside

 Today was a good day- better than that, today was a great day.  Having Darren around makes everything better.  We went to the beach as a family this morning about 9 and spent the whole day there.  We planned on leaving around 1, but didn't leave till after 4 because we were having such a great time.  One of Paul friends (a boy in our ward) had his birthday party on the beach.  We are good friends with his family-Doug and Jill Lewis.  They are a great family, we love hanging out with them.  They had their Hobie Cat, 3 paddle-boards, footballs, frisbee, tubes, floaties, and some other fun beach stuff.  There were some other families from the ward there.  We started out fishing, snorkeled a little, played in the sand, played games, ate and just felt happy.  

I loved these cool pelicans hanging out.

And this cool bird

Gabe's beautiful face

Kyle!

Look at those swimtrunks!  He loves them! LOL

A cool needle fish we caught with a cast net.

Gabe!

 

Kyle and Ellie being cute

Ellie

What a life! 

Gabe is inseparable from Darren.  It is hilarious.  If I try and take Gabe when Darren is holding him he will push me away and say, "Don! Dont!"

Birthday boys on one of the paddle-boards

Paul getting ready to throw his cast net.  He has caught so many cool fish with that thing!

Good job buddy!

Gabe taking a much needed nap

We saw a sea turtle!  You can't really see it in the picture.  But it was cool.  It kept coming to the surface- and we would try and swim to it- then it would come to the surface somewhere else- and we would swim to it- and it would come to the surface in a totally different place.  So we never got really close to it.

Birthday party! Gotta love the shade tent- it makes me feel right at home!

Darren and the kids with the Hobie Cat

  A couple other fun things today:  Ellie stepped on a stingray and it swam away!  We saw some dolphins pretty close.  None that looked like sharks today thank goodness:) 

Here is some video of the dolphins swimming close to Darren

http://youtu.be/lsYYF4jAMFE

And Dolphins by the kids
http://youtu.be/q4FS1UiP3-Q

Cool seashells digging down in the sand with Gabe watching:
http://youtu.be/KFtgmNPyecI 

Gabe being cute:
http://youtu.be/DkFFE0aGcNQ 


You know, I am really falling in love with the beach.  It is going to be so bitter sweet to move.  For now- I just try to soak it all in.