Moments

 

Vacation was wonderful as our time in Florida always is, and I will soon post many of our Florida photos and details, but this post is about the moments and realizations I come to every year when we take our first walk on the beach.

We journey to Florida every January. My parents have a timeshare and we are lucky enough to be invited along. My girls love it and I love the time they get to spend making memories with their Mee-Maw and Paw-Paw.

Each year as we take our first walk on the beach I realize that an entire year has passed. I think of the year before and how old my children were, what they were doing, what they liked, disliked, etc. This year as we walked and I was reflecting on years past Ainsley was walking next to me, each of us holding a side of a bucket’s handle and Ainsley was picking up every shell in sight in that bucket while making up songs about those shells. Kaylee was in front of us running along, in and out of the waves, and every once in awhile picking up some random item and bringing it back to ask me what it was and giving her theory on what it was.

As usual through my reflections leads me to my predictions and thoughts as to what it will be like next year, their ages, what they will be doing, what they will like and what they won’t. I think that far to soon enough they won’t want to walk with me, it just won’t be a cool thing to do. Ainsley’s silly-songs she likes to make-up won’t be sung, and Kaylee will be more concerned with how she looks walking on the beach then the random things she finds.

Each day we take our beach walks I savor them, I let them sink in, really sink in to my mind and to my heart. All the normal hustle-bustle of our normal life is gone. No school, no work, no tumbling or dance class to get to. No house to worry about cleaning, lunches to be made or homework to get done. The sun warms my skin and those girls warm my hearts. Their thoughts, that are constantly verbalized without any filter, their observations, which are also constantly verbalized without any filter (which can be dangerous on a beach), even their disagreements. These are simple conversations but so significant. These are my moments, my very treasured moments.