Sandy Point Sixtieth Celebration

 Our lives have been super full this past month and so I have been trying to take everything one day at a time. This is not a gift of mine but it is something that I'm working on. Most of our engagements have involved packing and meal-planning and a whole lot of orchestrating to make sure everyone is where they need to be when they need to be there with full bellies or arms laden with surprises for whomever it is that we are celebrating. Whew. It has been glorious and exhausting and everything in between. And certainly memorable too. So many of our loved ones' birthdays fall in the months of July and August so it's like party city over here and it's been awesome! 

After hosting two parties in one week (one the night before we were supposed to leave town), I was forced to take a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants approach when we headed out of town midday on Monday. My dad rented a house for all of my immediate family and invited us to spend time with them in honor of my mom's 60th birthday that happened earlier in the month. Ordinarily I would have everything planned out all the way from what desserts we will eat each night down to what the color of my underwear would be each day but this time we were literally on the road driving before I even had a second to pull up my dad's email to see where the heck this house was that we were going to. Like I didn't even know what city it was in. Usually this sort of "unknown" leaves me in a panic but this time was different. I felt so spontaneous and the four days at the house were like the biggest gift to me ever. Have you ever experienced anything like this? Where all you can manage is to show up? And then you are blessed immensely by breathtaking beauty and an amazing time of togetherness? I mean, it was supposed to be a celebration for my mom but I felt spoiled rotten. And it was amazing.

So, apparently I am a ocean girl. Or maybe more accurately a sound girl. There was something so calming about being on the water, literally surrounded by it, smelling the sea life, sitting on the deck and reading in the sun, watching the osprey fish overhead, digging in the tide pools, enjoying the sunset and hearing the sound of the waves hitting the rocky shore as boats passed on by. Every morning I would wake up and see the view and want to pinch myself. How can a place be this beautiful!? It also helped that I brought the perfect book, was with really great company, got to go for a nice long run and take a couple kayaking adventures.

I took like a gazillion pictures and there were only about 12 of them that I didn't like so consider yourself warned (and enjoy my little summary of our trip in photos!)