beach babes

The beaches on along the gulf shore in Texas may not be the most picturesque, but when you have three kids, a bunch of sand, a bucket, a boogie board and some waves, the possibilities are endless. Add to that an additional 24 adults and 24 children, and you have yourself one crazy beach party.

This past weekend our family, along with 12 others in which Catcher was the oldest child present, braved the town of Port Aransas, TX where the sea lice attacked the boogie boarders in the water and the sea gulls attacked any child with a kernel of popcorn on the shore. Why would we punish ourselves in such a way, you may ask? To be honest, the trip is more than just a social experiment. It's a social gathering of our Sunday school class that has evolved into this wild tradition; I would be bummed if we had to miss it.

Every year someone is pregnant or about to be pregnant or somebody's baby is having his/her first trip to the beach. We share laughter and tears (the tears mostly belong to the children, but sometimes the ladies get emotional after a couple bottles of wine). There's always some guy drinking butter on the guys night out, and the women have to wait an hour for a table at the only "decent" restaurant in town when they get their own night away from the madness. You return home sunburned and bloated--because someone insists on bringing a year's worth of Doritos along, which you just can't resist no matter how "healthy" you are on a day-to-day basis--and discover sand everywhere. But establishing tradition is great for the little ones, and you just can't beat the feeling of parental solidarity. Because we're all in this crazy thing together--let's try to make it fun while we can.

Next up for the Wheat family? A lake vacation in the great state of Wisconsin (I'm labeling our "vacations" this year as beach, lake, mountains). I'll be off the grid for the next 10 days, which means I'm not bringing my computer along, so you should expect to see something from me by the end of July with the way I've been keeping up (or not) with the blogging lately. In the meantime, enjoy these lovely pictures of the Texas gulf coast, and try not to judge if your own beach vacation includes waters that are slightly less brown in color:

sporty sunday

Somehow we made it 2/3 of the way into lacrosse season without my having watched a game. By some crazy stroke of luck, Alex was home the one Sunday in March and the one Sunday in April that Catcher had games an hour outside of Austin. Alex took Scout along on the first outing, and I stayed home with Tillie who was sick at the time. The second time around, the boys bonded doing boy things (like hitting each other with sticks) while the girls and I stayed home and bonded doing girl things (like reading quietly and acting otherwise civilized). Last weekend, however, it was a family affair as we trudged out to hill country for a Sunday fun-day of mini lacrosse.

I gave the girls pedicures when they got bored, and then I gave them snacks (mom bribe) so I could actually observe some of the action on the field. Catcher isn't the smallest guy out there this year (he's close), but he does have bright pink shoes so I can always spot him from the sideline. 

hunting and waiting

It started as a chilly morning--at least by Austin Easter weekend standards--but that didn't stop the children from enjoying their second egg hunt of the season on the grounds of Laguna Gloria. We had to skip Scout's soccer game to make the hunt, but we had a good reason. Through some twist of fate (or perhaps a case of mistaken identity because there is another Sarah Wheat in Austin) I was recently elected to the board of Inherit Austin. Don't ask me the organization's mission statement yet--I'm still working on memorizing the FAQs that I received at our first meeting last week--but it has something to do with maintaining the historical integrity of the city. All joking aside, however, I'm excited to be part of this group, and one of its major fundraisers is the annual Easter egg hunt at Laguna Gloria.

Because I just joined, I was exempt from working the event, which meant I was able to enjoy it with my children. It turns out that "enjoying" the egg hunt with these three meant I got to hold everyone's balloon animals and donut holes, while trying to balance my coffee, as they ran wild in search of technicolored plastic eggs. Scout and Tillie were disappointed with their loot, but the bunny-inspired face painting made up for it...sort of [see group photo, below].

When the big event was over, which had kicked into gear at the delightful hour of 8:30am, we found ourselves jacked on candy (at 10:00am!) and no place to go. As we considered whether to crash the neighborhood egg hunt or go to the Capitol grounds for the festival our church puts on every year, I decided we should run by the Home Depot first. Now that we're homeowners again, I find myself at the Home Depot at least three times a week; it just felt like the thing to do on a Saturday morning.

It was a successful trip. Side note: I consider any trip to the Home Depot where all children come out with all limbs in tact a "success." But there was a surprise waiting for us in the parking lot when we returned to the car, and the car wouldn't start. It turned out to be nothing but a dead battery, but it took up the next two hours of our day and nixed our plan to hit as many egg hunts as possible this year (which, admittedly, was a terrible plan when you consider the amount of sugar that would have been ingested on such a mission).

Instead of whining and complaining--like I really wanted to inside--I used the dead battery as a teaching moment for the children. You know, the kind where you tell them sometimes adversity comes up in life, blah, blah, blah...and they just sit there like "Okay, Lady, but can we eat all this candy we just worked so hard to gather at the egg hunt?"