Always a week behind....

So last week, while Ben was in Fort Wayne, we still managed to have some fun.

On Tues. we went to the beach with some friends.  It was a beautiful day at the beach, until this pop-up storm came out of nowhere.  We had no time to gather our belongings and run to the car, so instead we grabbed the beach umbrella...turned it basically sideways since the rain was coming in at such and angle, and 4 adults and 4 kids tried to huddle under it.  We watched as our belonging were getting soaked and then we noticed something white falling on the sand....HAIL!  This cloud had a hail storm in it... I couldn't believe it.  I don't think I've been caught outside in hail before (except, once on bike in Japan with Pella)...I've hardly even seen hail...never mind being out on the beach in it.  It was crazy.  At this point we were all trying to kneel behind the umbrella while Bethany sacrificed her own dryness and tried to cover us with towels.  Suddenly the hail stopped, then the rain stopped then the wind died down, and we slowly crawled out from under the umbrella.  As we began to assess the damage, Tobi, who had been eating her lunch when all this happened, let out a big cry "MY LUNCH!".  This apparently was her biggest concern...not that everything was soaked and we had just been pelted by hail...but that her lunch was seriously interrupted and may have been ruined!  That's my girl!

Running in the water.

Before the storm, enjoying her lunch.

 Then this popped up.

And left the beach covered with this...

 But it passed and the sun came back out and we stayed the rest of the afternoon, watching storms pop up to the north and south of us but never directly over us again.

 Tobi girl LOVES the beach!

Last week was also my birthday.  My mom and Sarah and I went out for Japanese food, which was delicious!  Ryan single handedly watched all the kids since my Dad was in Haiti and Ben was in Indiana.  (Thanks, Ry!) And then we all shared this delicious cake (made by Kayla, with some help from Sarah :))

Ben did come home for the weekend (yeah!) and since no week would be complete with out some kind of bubble activity we had a back yard bubblefest...

 Whew...that was last week...now it's mid-week into this week and Ben is back in Fort Wayne (wah!).   So...we are keeping busy, having fun, enjoying summer... and trying to avoid hail storms!