Mmm...Sandy Chocolate Pies

Laundry was on my agenda this morning! : )  I got up around 8, and ran down to the laundry to get some started.  I just had to wash swim stuff and a load of light things-Ethan had two shirts with stuff on them, and I didn’t want the stains to sit too long!

Then, we packed up our van.  Today was our last day at the beach. : (  I packed one suitcase with all we’d need to shower and change at Rita’s beach house after our sandy bodies trekked back from the beach.  We dropped off Hercules (Clay’s new hermit crab) so he didn’t bake in the van, and headed down to the beach!

Under the pier : )

Mary Claire and her daddy out in the waves

Ethan building roads and tunnels

Mary Claire planting a Garden.  She even watered it. ; )

This is when the girls took our chairs.  Pfttth. : P

He smiled, he smiled, he smiled for me!  (He's holding a plate of barnacles!)

It was a beautiful (HoT!) day-the water was warmer today, and it was perfect.  We (I with a little help from my little friends) made a big Pit Pool (very unofficial term! haha!).  We dug out sand, and gave it a protective wall.  It took us over an hour to get this far:

but then...in less than an hour...it was gone.  I mean, leveled and beautiful beach again.  It still always amazes me-the power of the ocean.  And that we happily play at its feet shore.  Even with sharks and jellyfish, it draws us in.  That beautiful danger, that is ready to turn on us in an instant.

Kinda like diabetes when you think about it.  We just keep it bouncing inside of normal-not too low, not too high.  And, boy have we had a week!

Sandy Site.

We take off Mary Claire’s pump while she is in the ocean, and use the little plug to block off her site (we’ve gotten sand in it before...not fun!).  But having that pump off, having her unhooked from her lifeline of insulin-drives her CrAzY high.  I do NOT look forward to her post-summer a1c. : (  I hate having that to think about all the time.

We immediately hook her up after swimming, and start pushing insulin.  I start conservatively, but then an hour later, I’m just pushing.  I have to get her down for dinner so she can eat with everyone.  And when she’s high..she’s SO irritable and whiny and uncooperative.  I’ve promised to love her no matter the number on the meter, but only the Good Lord helps me through.  She can be so difficult when she’s not happy (or too high or too low!).  I know how I feel when I am desperate to eat, so I can’t even imagine how she feels.  I try to sympathize, I really do.  I’m sure I still have room for improvement.

Yesterday, we lost a site.  Right at the end of our pool time at the water park, she unplugged to go back in one last time, and off it came.  I knew it could happen, so I wasn’t surprised.  I just knew that then the clock was t-i-c-k-i-n-g.  I hate that too.

Ok, anyway, you get it.  Back to vacation..

The kids played, and I fell asleep in a chair as the surf came up and washed my feet.  It was the sound, the kids playing, the warm sun, the “chocolate pies” Mary Claire was “feeding” me:

the long days lately and the hard work on the Pit..it was all too much!  Ches touched my hand, and I jumped.  I knew I was close to falling asleep, but really doing it?  Two totally different things when your kids are that close to powerful danger! 

Then I came up and laid under the pier and read for a while, with my legs hanging out in the sun.  This, my friends, is how you tan the backs of your legs.  Or like this:

Catch the mama in the top right.  This is how you tan your back.  Off the sand.  This will be me someday..in someone else's pictures!

We ended our day with warm showers, and a goodbye family dessert of layered ice cream sandwiches (with cool whip and caramel topping-DeLiSH!), for Ches’ cousin David’s birthday.  We took one last picture of all the kids there (we had to narrow it to post-1984 kids, since..aren’t we all kids? ha!):

Bye-bye, Ocean City, we’ll see you next year!

Love you, the Jones family