Beaches, babies, burns, blessings, birthdays

I am LOVING how much we've been able to go to the beach the past week or so. I don't know why on earth it took so LONG to have hot weather, but...we are taking full advantage of it and heading to the beach every chance we get! We are soooo blessed to be so close to so many, many beaches...my absolute FAVORITE beach is Canoe Cove, which happens to be less than 10 minutes from our house. Jonah calls it 'our beach', quite appropriately, I think. And he is a beach BUM, let me tell ya. An Island boy through and through. Just loves hunting for hermit crabs (which are VERY bountiful!) and swimming in his little turtle tube...way over his head, mind you. so much fun. Not quite as RELAXING as one might wish for, but...so delightful watching him have fun. And this kid has FUN, no matter what he does. Sometimes we wish we could take him to more 'fun' events, but...they all seem to COST so much freakin' cash...and he's just as happy to be at a FREE beach...or playing on his slip-n-slide...or swinging on his swings. A very easy please, thankfully. And I am trying to remember to put sunscreen on my very easily burned skin. I'm STILL peeling from a day at the beach with Amanda over 3 weeks ago. And while the color of my skin is improving...I'm not feeling especially pretty having the skin scaling OFF my still quite-white legs...Jonah is the brownest of us all. Jay is quite close, though - and considering he is in a vehicle most of his days, he's still impressively brown with his beautiful Guam-y skin. I do love that man.

Jonah talks about the baby all the time. Its so sweet hearing the things he says about 'her' -- he's quite convinced the baby will be a baby sister. There's not much convincing him otherwise. We shall see if he's right. It'll be a surprise...4 months from yesterday is my due date. Time is flying. I'm feeling more and more uncomfortable. All my references to how much I LOVED being pregnant before...Jason thinks I'm just NOW remembering the discomfort...but...I still love being pregnant. Love what these 9 months of being a little uncomfortable will bring me...I still can hardly believe the incredible answer to prayer and anticipation of getting to mother another child...what a huge, huge blessing. I can't wait!! I'm starting to have sciatic pain again in my back and through my...."mothering region", but...am hopeful it won't be as bad as it was with jonah. We shall see.

We've been celebrating Jay's birthday pretty much all weekend long. A nice dinner with my little sister and her boyfriend (yep -- its true!!) and some FREE cheesecake because it was Jay's birthday (another reason why Swiss Chalet remains my favorite!!) -- just fun to be with people who love you and who you love, celebrating birthdays. Birthdays are an EVENT with our family. I love it. We went to the beach (of course!) yesterday with a bunch of family and it was....the most beautiful beach day...the WAVES were awesome, and it was so beautiful and warm and lovely. And Jason and I went on a DATE lastnight (thank you Erin for loving our kid while we were gone!) - to a concert of two different girls we LOVE, part of our PEI Jazz and Blues Festival...it was AMAZING. I wanted to be a singer/songwriter and be up there singing with both of them.

Which is probably partly why I agreed to a last-minute invite to help lead worship at church this morning. I loved it. I forget sometimes how much I love to sing. There is oodles of talented musicians in our church, so I often don't feel like I need to participate. But - I loved singing this morning, and with such a happy easy-going worship leader standing beside me. Not my husband in this case, but...a friend anyways...it was fun.

Anyways. I'm rambling. And the night is not done yet. I have a few more hours to celebrate Jason's birthday before life returns to 'normal' tomorrow morning, and he goes back to work, and is an official 35 year old. I love birthdays. I love my family and friends, and love our local Pizza Delight for giving us such a yummy supper, and giving Jay a free meal, and not charging jonah because "he's so little" (I won't tell them how many piece of pizza he ate!!)

ANNNNNNDDDD...Erin just dropped off some delicious-looking pieces of CHEESECAKE from my dear girl, Amanda...even though I didn't make it to her party. You rock, Amanda. I can't wait to bite into THAT!!! You're awesome. Thank you.

And we are about to sit ourselves down and start the second season of Community...a very hilarious show we have FINALLY taken the advice of SEVERAL people and started watching. Worth it. So funny.

I just feel happy.