Sunday

This is what happens to the freezer when we plug into shore power for a few weeks. That’s the freezer—the fridge looks the same. We thawed them both out yesterday so they’ll hopefully work better when we get underway again. Our freezer is so ridiculously large and deep that we’ve filled the bottom half with big bottles of water. Our permanent ice box.

I can count on one hand the memories I have of Ouest falling asleep like this. She just has never been the type of kid to fall asleep randomly. But the night before last she had a bad night of sleep for some reason and by dinner at five she could hardly keep her eyes open and couldn’t eat a thing. A little before six she got ready for bed and went into her room. Ali was finishing up doing some dishes and told her a couple of times that she’d be right in. As she rinsed the last dish she looked over and there was Ouest.

Lowe has begun climbing on everything—with no thought whatsoever on how he might go about getting down again. And yes, there is a total disregard of our pleas to “stop climbing on there.” And there, and there, and there too.

This is the pre-beach ritual. Who needs a coffee to go to the beach you ask? Oh, only the people who are there by NINE a.m. Kids up and at ‘em by 6:30, Ouest begins to ask to get dressed by 7:00, breakfast at 7:30, random playing, sunblock applying, dressing, tooth brushing, and we’re out the door. It’s now 8:30 and we’re on our way to the beach.

We video called my mom today which the kids absolutely love. They’ve become so good at it that today Ouest said, “Grammy, play hide and seek with me. You count.” So that’s exactly what we did. Ouest hid while Grammy counted nice and loud. At ten I carried her around the boat for the five seconds or so that it takes Ouest to get too impatient with the game and come bursting out of her hiding spot laughing.