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We're home now from a wonderful week at Surfside Beach. I like to think of this place as our little secret because it seems that not too many people know about it. It's smaller, less busy, and about 40 miles south of Galveston. There isn't much in the town of Surfside besides houses and beach, but that is all we need. Cody's parents joined us for the week. His brother and his wife also came for one weekend. Ava and Nate loved playing in the waves and sand. Lucas liked getting extra attention from his Mama and everyone else. I got to read two novels during the week and enjoyed having lots of help with the kids. Plus, my mother-in-law did nearly all the cooking so I got a break from that. It was so nice to spend time together as a family and we will have many good memories from this trip. I posted some pictures on my homepage. And, I ordered a memory book from Snapfish. I've decided I want to create a memory book for each of our family vacations throughout the years. Snapfish has an easy to use interactive site that creates really beautiful books with all kinds of themes, backgrounds, styles, etc. It's not very expensive, especially since there is a 30% off sale right now. The sale ends July 15th though, sorry. And our vacations should be dooseys since Cody has recently informed me that he would like for our family to take one international trip every year once the kids get old enough to travel better and remember the trips. I think that is a great idea and find myself day-dreaming about all the neat places we could visit as a family and how that might impact the kids' lives. One of the things I took away from the book Living with Less (which I highly recommend!!!) is that spending money on experiences that build closer family bonds is better than spending money on things that deteriorate and ultimately do not last.
Well, I've got to get the peach cobbler out of the oven now. On our way home, we stopped by a roadside stand and bought a half bushel of fresh peaches. OH so good. And as if this blog could not get more random in topics covered, when I think of peaches I remember a time when I was in elementary school and visited my grandparents' farm in Oklahoma for a week. They had an orchard of peach trees that were just becomming ripe while I was there. They were not ripe yet, just almost. I was roaming the field, picking peaches and eating them right on the spot. It was such a thrilling feeling for me to pick a peach right from the tree and eat it, that I kept doing it over and over again. I ate about a dozen not-quite-ripe peaches that day and had the worst stomachache you can imagine.