The Best Bad Day

Saturday we went to the beach. I LOVE the beach, Trevor tolerates the beach, Abby couldn't care less, Carson was petrified of the water (which is a blessing for a future story), and Preston couldn't get enough of the sun, sand and sea. It was such a great day with 2 minor "incidents". But I'll keep you in a state of anticipation for a little longer.

This was toward the end of the day, thus we're all looking rather haggard, but HAPPY!

Anticipation over. The last of the two "incidents" was, or will be, an expensive one. Two miles from the beach on our way home at 10:30pm our transmission went out. Long story short, great friends helped us out (Kirk and his sister Kelly are the bomb), we got home safely at 1:00am, signed up for AAA and had them tow the car the next day. Price of the repairs TBD!

I don't know if I've mentioned before, but Abby is perfect. She's perfectly content no matter where we are or what we are doing. (I'm setting myself up for a major drama queen when she's 2 aren't I?)

Preston and Reese. Pres loved throwing the ball with his dad and uncles and running away from the waves.

I just thought this was a really cute picture of Avery and Gina. Side note. Avery HATED the feel of the sand. She wouldn't venture off the blanket and if she put one toe in the sand she would stand there and cry until someone moved her back onto the blanket. Such a funny girl!

Uncles Ryan and Cory burying Carson. He's better contained this way. Here's the long story of the first "incident". Trevor wanted to go change into his swimsuit and I needed to change Abby's diaper. We left the group to walk up to the bathrooms. Because we are irresponsible parents, we forgot to ask someone to watch Carson. We figured he was with the big group and therefore, safe. Trevor and I came back 10 minutes later and were talking with everyone when a few minutes later I noticed Carson was gone. Everyone, of course, went every direction looking for him. I ran to the nearest lifeguard tower to report it. (Mind you we've done the missing child report before. Same child, different state.) He, the lifeguard, referred me to ground patrol and they radioed all the information. They say this happens all the time and everyone gets found. But then asked me if he would go near the water. When I said no, they both looked pretty relieved. They told me to wait with them by their truck. I was pretty brave (had to fight back the panic tears) but I was dying trying to stand there waiting patiently. Meanwhile horrible scenarios were running through my mind about who had abducted him, if I would ever see him again etc. etc. Trevor said the same things were going through his mind as he was running around the beach looking. It took, maybe, 3 minutes before they had a call on their radio saying they had found him. A couple had found him sitting by himself so they took him to a lifeguard tower. I sprinted the 100 yards to the tower (and 20 feet before I reached him, realized that was a mistake). He was sitting there, cool as a cucumber, on the lifeguard chair checking out the scenery. I had mentioned that to the other lifeguards. I knew he wouldn't be scared or crying or upset. That's the scary part about Carson, he would never act like something was wrong. The moral of the story, put a specific person in charge of your kids when you choose to abandon them.

Carson fully contained