beautiful beach days

the last few days we have been going to the beach everyday. we went to our local mullet beach a couple of days in a row. it is five minutes away and a great way to just get out of the house for a bit. on the first of our two days, there were huge waves and a high tide that brought some fresh puddles for ezra to play in. he ran through them yelling, "splish, splash, splosh!" while ronan and dillon enjoyed being tossed by the waves crashing on the shore. when the older boys tired of the waves they came up to the puddles and skim boarded across them on their boogie boards. dillon let ezra try his out and ezra said he wanted to take it home. regrettably i forgot my camera that day and i have decided i am never going to the beach again without it - even on these short trips meant to just get out of the house for a bit.

the next day i had my camera and got a lot of great shots of ezra and ronan flying ezra's space shuttle kite. i am going to make a separate post with those shots i love them so much. here's one of me holding the kite while ezra sat in front of me watching it fly up in the beautiful blue sky.

every now and then he would scamper to the shore to watch the boys in the water.

we watched them together at a safe distance.

yesterday we went to guana bay on the other side of the island. it has a stunning view of the island st. barthelemy - aka st. bart's - which due to my damaged designated beach camera unfortunately has a dark line across it in this picture.

we went searching along the shoreline for shells and rocks of which there were plenty due to the high tide. ezra collected mostly rocks that i almost left at the beach but in the end decided to bring home. i'm glad i did because they are really beautiful and bring a different element of nature into the house other than the ubiquitous seashells. i think we may even paint on them if ezra says it's okay.

i love how i caught his shadow in this picture which was mostly an accident. it is often too bright at the beach to see well on my view screen. most shots are point, shoot, and hope for the best. this was a fun little surprise capture.

i like the wavey lines of the shoreline and horizon and the cloud patterned sky above in the picture below.

the continuous flow of low waves are great for boogie boarding at guana. dillon and ronan went straight into the water with their boards when we got there and shortly after declared it was their favorite beach.

we drove home in the rain and through a flooded golf course. when we got home our kitchen had been flooded too by the pounding rain blowing against the kitchen slider. we're up on the 8th floor of our hotel, so i guess that's what you'd call a torrential downpour. luckily michael was home studying for block exams and laid a half a dozen beach towels down to stop the flow of water coming into the apartment. we've been having quite a bit of rain since hurricane earl, but luckily it's either raining after we've been to the beach or during the night while we are sleeping. rain is good, because it helps the plants grow back and cools the island off, but rain is also bad because it creates more breeding grounds for mosquitos, including the infamous dengue variety that could give you a panic attack every time you or your child gets bit by a mosquito. another good thing about the mercurial weather of the island is that it brings awesome skies during the day and in the evenings. here are a few of those skies i grabbed my camera for.