SENIOR year{s}

top: 19

bottom left: 21

bottom right: 16 {my first driver's license picture}

...

this week i helped host a senior luncheon for all of the ladies in our neighborhood who 

"consider themselves to be seniors."

this is what we say when the gal's ask "what age are seniors anyway?"

we are smart and don't say an age:)

our span was 55's-90's for our guests,

with a few of us lucky ones in our thirties there 

to bring soup and bread sticks for the october themed spread.

i made my pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

they are always a fan favorite at the senior luncheon.

i make plenty so the women can take a cookie or two for themselves, 

and then take a cookie or two back to their husbands at the end.

some of the gal's needed to be wheeled over in their wheelchairs.

others just like an arm to hold.

last year i got to escort elizabeth there and back.

she showed me her hats.

i will always remember elizabeth for her hats.

me and everyone else to have ever known her i'm sure!

linda had her daughter take pictures of elizabeth in all of her hats,

and wrote down where the hats came from and the names of some.

and then they bound a professional book of it all.

i got to see the book for the first time yesterday,

and let me tell you, when i talked to her on the phone today about it with her,

i couldn't wait to ask her about the one her husband brought back to her from IRAN.

it was QUITE the story, believe me.

i swore my secrecy of its origination,

if i told you, 

i'd have to kill you;)

you get the idea.

then we talked about two books we've loved reading,

and how we can't wait to do the luncheon all over again next year.

these women have so many stories to tell,

and i wish i could hear them all.

so about this luncheon.

this year i was running out and back to gather max from kindergarten,

which meant no wheeling anybody over, 

BUT i did make it just in time for my favorite part.

the part where the ladies tell us all of their secrets on life.

i promise you,

there are no smarter people on this planet than these gals in their "senior" years.

kara and brittany brought pumpkins from their front porches,

and orange and yellow vines of leaves that they laid through the center of the tables.

there was chicken noodle soup, pumpkin curry soup, tomato basil Parmesan soup, and sausage soup

all in crockpots warming by the windows.

and the bread sticks!

let me tell you about the bread sticks!!!

there's really only one word you need to know and it's BUTTER:)

then we had pink lemonade and ice water.

but the thing that made the entire shin dig for me were the questions.

really, i guess it was the answers.

each woman, all seated around two long rectangular table clothed tables,

took one conversation question from a basket,

and we all ate soup, after soup, after soup,

and they answered them.

one sister talked about how her favorite pie was lemon pie as a girl,

and it STILL is.

{when her husband came to wheel her back home, he said it was his favorite too.}

another sister talked about visiting every continent except for Antarctica,

and how traveling was the best advice anyone had ever given her.

elizabeth talked about the 4 missions she and her husband had served together.

she also brought a picture of them together on their first mission--NO HAT!

that's what i said to her because i've never seen her without a hat.

sister kapp told us about all of the joys and tragedies she'd been through this year with death of her husband and several other family members, and then the joys of grandchildren getting marriaged, having babies, and going on missions.

she and i always talk about how we were meant 

to be best friends, and we really really mean it.

alice couldn't make it,

but she is like a mother to me,

and oh how i love hugs from alice!

another gal said that after raising 8 children she wished she could go back and tell herself 

to be LESS patient with her children,

which i thought was interesting because everyone almost always says they wish they would have had more of that, not less.

{she said even now that her kids are all grown and raised and thriving,

they even say they didn't have it bad at all--this was pretty cute i thought}

but not her,

she said she thinks she was too nice.

and she didn't say it in a sad way,

but in a thoughtful way.

and even though all of her children turned out great,

she thinks she should have been a little more firm.

this really resonated with me.

and as i sat there listening to these wonderful women,

with all of their wisdom,

i just felt lucky.

lucky to be in their presence.

lucky to call them friends.

lucky to be in a room with so much experience.

i wished we could have stayed all day,

but before we knew it,

the husbands were there to escort their sweethearts home,

and the girlfriends were arm and arm out the doors, and back to their condos together,

trying not to spill the soup and cookies they were taking to their other friends 

who couldn't make it to the luncheon that day.

so as we were cleaning up, 

i was thinking.

thinking about what i wished i could tell my younger self,

and as i'm looking as these old driver's licenses and college id's this morning,

i'm wishing i could tell my younger self to be more kind.

mostly more kind to myself,

although i'm sure i could always be a little more kind to others too.

i want to tell myself to enjoy my sleep,

and to learn to go to be earlier, EARLIER than learning it at 32 at least;)

{also, take that trip to europe with sean that your parents offered you, 

and get married in the fall instead of the spring! ha!}

i want to tell my younger self that in ten years i will literally be living my dreams 

every 

single 

day!

and it's gonna be hard, but it's gonna be great,

so don't worry about how it is all gonna get there as much

{i spent a lot of time worrying if this would all ever get to be this, and it did,

and how SILLY it was that i spent so much time worrying about it all!}.

and now i'm sitting here thinking about what i would tell myself now,

if it were ten years from now.

or 50 years from now.

i think i'd say,

enjoy it.

keep enjoying it.

remember to enjoy the children in their own little phases.

enjoy them separately.

enjoy them together.

be a little more firm,

and maybe not always as patient.

be quick to apologize,

and keep a soft heart always.

even and especially when you just want it to be hardened.

and last but not least,

perspective.

always give yourself time for some perspective.

it will make all the difference in the world.

{the "A-team" aka max and brennan are in park city with grandma and grandpa and the "B-team" aka dean and chase are here with me living the simple life of baby and 3yr old. 

OH how i've missed just being with little littles!!! heaven I TELL YOU! this moment brought to you by UEA and grandparents. THIS IS BLISS!!!!!!}

the day it rained and sean called me bossy {day 5}

it rained.

on and off, hard, then less hard.

enough to where the kids wanted to live in the hot tub.

so natalie and i threw on our running shoes, and ran to the pier and back. 

actually we RAN to the pier, and then we walked back:)

the rain felt so good, and the salty ocean air in my lungs, there's just nothing better.

when we got back we slipped into our suits and sat in the rain on the beach until it stopped.

then we used up the very last of all our sunscreen reserves,

soaked up the graces of the afternoon sun one last time,

dove into the ocean one last time,

went in the hot tub one last time,

and showered off all the sand one last time.

except really, it took two weeks for me to get the last bit of sand out of my left ear,

and another week to sweep the last of it out of my laundry room.

boogy boarding and beach living souvenirs.

oh yeah:)

i think it's finally all gone.

after we put the kids to bed,

while i sorted the clean clothes from the dirty 

{tell me, why did i bring anything other than swimsuits and pj's???},

the boys went on a dirty dr depper run.

they gathered everything from the pinterest picture i texted them.

good times:)

then all 10 adults of us drank our dirties 

and talked about everything we loved about our 5 days at the beach.

things we wanted to do different next time,

things we wanted to keep the same,

and then we sang coom-biya, but not around the camp fire,

because we like to sing our favorite 80's songs around that.

with reese's smores.

i forgot to tell you we did that the second night on the beach,

with all the kids and babies.

we did.

it was pretty great.

smores and sand.

nothing more crunchy than that!

so there it is folks,

oceanside 2k14.

we came,

we saw,

we paddle surfed,

we wiped out,

we diritied our dr peppers,

we sunsetted,

and we sat on the patio every night with the loudest ocean waves,

the fullest of moons,

and the most humid salty ocean air.

i never used a hair dryer once,

and when i curled my hair for family pictures, it fell out in half an hour.

made me feel right at home,

and also reminded me why i never used to do my hair.

every day i went in the ocean,

and every day it felt amazing.

the thing i miss the most about the beach is diving into the crisp water 

when you're just a "titch" too hot up on the sandy beach.

i miss boogie boarding with brennan,

and shell searching with max.

i miss running from the waves with chase,

and kissing sean out on the break WITH tongue;)

you know, after he found me THE PERFECT shell for my necklace, 

which i still have not made yet. i can't wait to do this!

this was after the morning where i was mad at him for telling me i was bossy.

i love that man,

and i love that he "gets" me.

even when things aren't perfect.

especially on vacation when things aren't perfect.

i love the beach.

i love watching my babies and my lover on his paddle board on the beach.

until we meet again beach...

{when we opened the door in vegas,

all of chase's shame fell out onto the ground.

when i went to take a picture of it all, he started throwing more stuff out.

he was so proud of his mischief. red heads.}

we stopped about 10 times on the way home.

we stopped once on the way there.

it's like little bodies save up their pee for the car ride home,

and want you to stop every 30 minutes, JUST to see if you will.

even with all of those stops and constant diaper changes,

chase still peed through his diapers at every stop.

strip poker.

that's what we called it.

i blame the 6 oz Hi-C orange burst.

the end.

until we meet again!

take me to bed maverick or loose me forever {day 4 at the beach}

being the northern california bred girl i am,

not only did i grow up thinking that all ocean water on the west coast was cold and wet suit requiring,

but i also thought that warm sunny beaches like hawaii could only be found in hawaii.

now, if you're not from california maybe you don't know that the north and south of california are basically two different states.

everything is completely opposite from the weather, to the culture, and the sports teams you root for.

GO GIGANTES!!!!!! 

so proud of my giants on this fine thursday morning.

so anyway, when we were walking out on the oceanside pier,

i just couldn't get over the fact that the ocean was so big.

and there i was standing in the middle of it.

watching the giant swells come in a out from the middle of it.

and from both directions, the giant ocean just went out forever in all ways!

i spent my life watching them from the shore, in the shelter of the little small bays and coves, standing in the fog, with my sweatshirt, jeans, and flip fops on, freezing my buns, except in the month of may where it's actually warm in half moon bay, and even then i still didn't like getting in the freezing water.

but this day on the oceanside pier,

i saw the ocean in a different way.

a massive, swelling, giant way.

the waves weren't breaking the further out we got,

so it was just the swells coming in,

and it was beautiful, and quiet in a whole new way that i had never in all those years noticed before.

also it was extra warm and sunny IN OCTOBER, so that was pretty great too.

max picked her nose most of the way out,

and the kids rode their scooters around the crowds like crazy people.

chase only wanted to push his little car on the way out,

so i think we bribed another kid to push it all the way back.

have you ever taken 10 kids and 9 adults to lunch before?

god bless our server at ruby's.

also, god bless my dr pepper cookies and cream ice cream float 

that i stole chase's whipped cream and put in mine.

amazing. 

when we got back from the pier, the boys snorkeled for sea shells 

and found these fancy ones that all the women wanted to take home for necklaces,

so the next two days was all about finding one for everyone.

by the end of the trip, everyone, including some of the little girls, 

had their prized necklace-to-be possessions,

wrapped in paper towels, and protected safely in plastic cups for the car rides home.

right at the end of the day, the water calmed down and sean headed out for his daily run on the paddle board. when he came back to shore, he road the wave in like some born and raised Polynesian.

at which point i yelled out to him,

"take me to bed maverick 

or loose me forever!!!!!" 

i mean really, there's nothing more fiiiiiine than your man coming in surfing on his paddle board.

it STILL has me all hot and worked up.

mmmmm mmmmm mmmmm.

yeah.

but my favorite time of the entire day was when i caught sean and brennan on the back porch at sunset. just staring at each other and laughing.

and it reminded me of when brennan was a newborn baby,

and sean would hold him out on his arm.

mostly brennan would just scream 'cause that's basically all he did as a baby,

but every once and awhile he would coo and smile at sean.

oh baby brennan!

i wish he hadn't screamed so much.

this night i think they were talking about farts,

or butts or something, 

but it didn't even matter because those two boys smiling at each other just made me happy happy happy!

also, the sunset was pretty great too.

oh beach, i miss you and your salty air.

the day we saw dolphins {day 3}

this was the day we saw dolphins.

a whole pod.

there's something magical about dolphins being so close to you off the shore.

the surfers stop surfing, and just sit with their feet dangling off the sides of their boards, 

and they all flag each other down to watch the dolphins

as they come within feet of them going by.

time just sorta stops as the mystical creatures slowly glide in and out of the water,

and we all sat on the sand wishing we were the surfers sitting out there on boards touching the dolphins as the swam by.

every time their fins would come up my heart would skip.

it never gets old.

also, i tried to snorkel for shells like my brother in law kenny because he was finding some AWESOME necklace making ones, but about three wipe outs later i called it quits and went back to boogie boarding, as there is nothing more fun 

than getting a really good wave right in front of your kids.

bloody max {day 1 at the beach}

about 2 minutes after getting out of the car max got a bloody nose.

and we aren't talking about some wussy bloody nose.

like it was full on someone just punched her in the face but they really didn't bloody nose.

and because there was lots going on she wandered around wiping her nose with her arms and on her shirt, thinking it was regular old snot, when really it was blood.

then it took almost half an hour to get it stopped.

and for the rest of the week every time her nose was running she would run up and ask me if it was bloody again.

and that is what i remember about the first day of the beach.