The Young and the Restless

Life's a beach

It may appear that all our life consists of is going to the beach, taking pictures of the beach, coming home and blogging about the beach...wash, rinse and repeat. Well let me assure you it does not. Sometimes we go hiking too. I kid. Bad days really do exist in paradise and we still have some daily struggles, but I tell you what, some days are like a gift wrapped up in shiny gold paper with a big bright red bow (or a brown paper package tied up with bakers twine, if we're going for the more trendy approach in this here analogy). Today was just one of those days. I keep saying I'm going to take a break from the beach pictures, but as luck would have it each beach trip becomes my new favorite and I just have to have pictures to remember it by. You guys, I can count on one hand how many times I've worn a short sleeved t-shirt here, and even then I usually end up putting a sweater over it at some point in the day.  But today I wore a t-shirt. And shorts. And I even wished I had worn my swimsuit.  We were creeping up on 80 degrees, we're talking windows down, sun glistening on your skin, bare feet in the sand and the kids not just tolerating the water but actually enjoying it.  At one point I turned to Jason and told him that everything about this day was perfect.  Then two minutes later I turned to him and said, "no really, like today is perfect".  Sometimes I just stop what I'm doing and think, I'm sitting at a beach. In New Zealand. I'm standing in line at the grocery store. In New Zealand. I'm pumping gas. In New Zealand. The novelty still hasn't worn off. We went home with sand in our hair, fresh freckles on our faces, sunburns on our shoulders and the most content smiles spread across our faces. (and then the next day found us huddled around the fireplace with the wind whipping our 80 degrees back down to the 50's. Such a tease.)