It’s been a while since I’ve written a real blog post with more than like fifteen words and a picture, and I’m feeling kind of neglectful of my poor blog. Ironic, considering my job!

The boys went to the beach with my mom and Larry while I was in Mexico. And by all accounts, they had an amazing time. I got pictures and videos from my mom throughout the week, which was nice. Kind of cool to think they really weren’t that far away, as the crow flies.

Some pictures that may or may not have made me tear up throughout the week…

But the best part about their trip was the email my mom sent me when it was over. Every time I read it, I teared up.

One of the most touching times we had was walking down the beach with them at night and them finding sand castles that others had built and just being awed. Last night they saw a tiny crab on the beach and played with the crab for several minutes.

Miles woke me up in the middle of the night one night to tell me we forget to have dessert. The next night they had enough brownies and oreos to make up the missing dessert.

Kristina’s coming in a couple of weeks and we’re taking them back to Orange Beach for a few days, so now I’m extra excited about it. But they’ll probably be dismayed to learn that I won’t be stuffing them with brownies and Oreos there. That’s a grandmother’s job!

In other news, my friends Heather and Maggie and I are doing our triathlon in a week! I had a week off of swimming (I’m guessing being lulled by the waves at the beach or floating in the pool with a glass of wine doesn’t count) so I’m trying to get back to where I was before my trip (i.e., not flailing across the pool for the entire 200 yards.) I think I’ll be okay, even if it means doing a length or two of breaststroke while I catch my breath. I also need to not forget about the twelve mile bike ride and two mile run after that swim. I know I can do those on their own, but after the swim? And then the bike ride? Hmm. We’ll see!

We just got new gutters this week. They are pretty. This has definitely been the summer of Home Improvement, what with the kitchen, the gutters, and the bench that’s being built in the dining room. Good stuff!

We also had a super fun awesome playdate the other day with one of Miles’s kindergarten classmates. Miles got to play with his friend alone for a few hours while I ran some errands with the other two, and then we all hung out together and went and had dinner. It was so nice! And the boys were really into impressing Rajan’s mom, because they ate strawberries, seaweed (!), rose petals (!!), and some other new things. I said I was going to be dropping the boys off at her house for food training.

One of the errands I had to run that day was to drop off the heart monitor I’d worn for the previous 24 hours. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my heart (I had it looked over plenty before my surgery last year) but I do get palpitations sometimes, and better safe than sorry, right?