Thursday {The Last Day on the Beach}

Thursday (Sept 16) morning started with a sweet call from one of the condo owners, Darl, reassuring me that we shouldn't have any trouble getting off the island, and that we were okay to stay for our last full day and night.  Wednesday night I was pretty sure we should gather up and head out but the kids were already in bed....anxiety is a feisty opponent.  But Thursday morning I was sure glad we'd stayed....we woke up to a beautiful morning.

We took full advantage of it not raining at the moment and hustled down to the beach, before we even ate breakfast.

The boys getting the good out of the $1 foam whistling football that Mike bought them.  It lasted for the 2-3 days they played with it so I'd say they got their money! 

The water was so tempting but so wild.  No one was allowed to go to it without a parent.  The warnings all said "knee high was too high" and it was another red flag day.

Eventually hunger and a little girl's sleepiness drove us back to the condo for breakfast and a rest.  After they ate and did some light packing while Ev rested, everyone got ready for our last swim at the condo.

We are so thankful God answered this weary mom's prayers to lessen the rain for our last day.

Little Zayden waiting to go to the pool....can you tell his body doesn't do "still" very well?  This was how we was positioned to do a dot to dot.

Mike borrowed Natalee's pink goggles - dreamy look.

She was about too cute in this swim suit.

Playing catch with the worn out football in the pool.

pool fun montage...

We got to see the Coast Guard we think running drills (or doing a rescue).

I went out to lay in the sun and warm up and this little biscuit followed me. 

Photos from our balcony.  Even our untrained eyes could see rip currents in the water and the local Dauphin Island Facebook page was full of warnings from the locals.  Two children had needed rescued just the day before when they got caught in a current and pulled out. 

Thursday's greatest disappointment was when Xavier realized it wasn't safe to boogie board and this was our last day.  My mama heart broke a little and felt a lot guilty.

God did paint beautiful evening pictures for us.

We went down to the beach for one last evening walk, and I gave the kids glow sticks to make it exciting.  Don't glow sticks make everything exciting?

The children with cameras also took their cameras down since we were just walking.  We hadn't let them take them along while we were playing because we didn't want to deal with sand and water in the lenses.

Natalee spots a crab.  Evie spots the water.  My little photogs in the background taking sunset pictures.

We did sand writing during the day a couple of days earlier, but after I wrote "The Beelers" then they all started writing again and I obligingly took pictures with my camera and theirs.  

God is a magnificent painter.

We stayed at the beach until dark, walking, exploring, being together.

finding sand crabs on the way back with the flashlight I took along...

I spent the evening out on the balcony appreciating the almost full moon reflecting off of the water and listening to the waves.  I actually fell asleep out there, wrapped in a blanket, and didn't come in to bed until after midnight.

After a couple of days of hard, heavy rain, we were very very thankful for Thursday.