The Beach is Back

Johnsons at the Beach 2008

It was good to go away, and it’s good to be home again. We had a wonderful trip to the beach this past week full of nothing but sun and sand and sea and seafood and shopping! Yea! The kids were good and the weather was custom ordered—it couldn’t have been a nicer trip. It was very relaxing.

We ended up taking a Bonus Child with us on the trip. (Once you get to four Shorties, adding one more really isn’t such a big deal.) Everywhere we went people would ask us if they were all ours. The Husband got to telling people that no, they weren’t all ours, we just saw some kids we liked in Wal-Mart and picked them up along the way.

Lily, Carter, Elaina, Hannah (honorary Johnson), Elise We got to the condo at around 5:00 on Monday and the kids were crazy ready to get into the pool, so the first thing we did before unpacking even was haul everyone down to the ocean and the pool to swim. They were pretty wound up from that five hour car ride. (Weren’t we all?)




The condo was super nice—very well appointed and lovely. The only issue I had the entire week was being 15 floors up. The kids were under strict orders that Lily’s feet had to be on the floor on the balcony every single time they stepped out there. We also pulled the chairs away from the rails and faced them to the wall just to make me feel better. But the trade off for this fear factor was an unbelievable view. I mean amazing.


We ate at great restaurants too…the Hangout was this really cool nightspot that during the day became a haven for families and kids. They have these huge canvas beds outside to lounge around on and a 7-ft-tall sand bar with a tunnel through it—just lots to do. (Although, seeing those beds out by the area where the band sets up, Steve said that he had a sudden wave of nausea thinking about our girls coming down here at Spring Break alone. Ditto.)

We also spent an afternoon riding gokarts and those water boats and kiddie rides. The kids had too much fun (so did the Big Kids).

And as usual, Lily was following in the footsteps of her fashionista sisters. (See photo illustration below:)She found these shoes at Claire's, pulled of the tags right there in the store, sat down on the floor, put the shoes on her feet, and confidently annouced while tossing her hair back over her shoulder that they were now Lily's shoes. And that was that.
(That's Mother in the family photo. She had a great time and held up very well with all of the travel.)
And on our 2008 Johnson World Tour, our church is generously sending the Husband and me to the Southern Baptist Convention this weekend. I’m really excited to go to the pastor’s conference stuff and hear the preaching! We need to be fed some too, so we're looking forward to a big time. We’re flying off and the kids are going to Mississippi to stay with the Apple Bottom Jeans Cousins, so pray, pray hard. Ha! (Love you Sandra and James!!! No one else is stupid enough, er, loves us enough to take the Shorties for an entire week!) Mother is going to stay with her mother for a visit, which will be fun for both of them and for the family.

The Johnsons are on the move this year big time.