Shell Hunting

Yesterday it rained at the beach. We were cooped up most of the day so when it finally stopped for a while Ariel and Cheyenne and I took a chance and went to the water.  We didn't take towels or a bucket or anything and I didn't know how it would turn out but I wanted to introduce them to one of my favorite things at the beach, walking. Not power walking or people watching but just  good old clear your mind and maybe look for shells walking. It didn't take long for the girls to "get it". They are both pretty intuitive. They knew I'd about had enough "togetherness" in the condo. I had nearly come unglued moments earlier when Lissy marked on one of the cushions and the couch... thankfully the markers were washable, but I needed a break and the "big" girls were in.  Almost immediately a pattern developed. Cheyenne, a prissy girly little thing, walked on the drier sand, flip flops on her feet constantly brushing her hair out of her face.  Ariel went straight for the waves,  hoping and darting in and out. I walked in the middle, none of us talked, we just walked. After a few minutes we discovered something interesting swirling around our feet. There were tiny shells everywhere. We started picking them up...Cheyenne finding them here and there, squealing each time like she'd found a diamond, Ariel reaching into the water to try to stop them before they raced back out to sea. I tried to show them the "happy medium" of shell collecting...standing in one spot and waiting for what the ocean wanted to toss at me. We started getting so many we couldn't carry them all. Cheyenne was leaving a little "breadcrumb shell trail". I told them to look for a paper cup or something to put them in but unfortunately for us this day no one had littered. I finally gathered up my tshirt and let them put all their shells in with mine...once again I was left carrying everybody's stuff, but this time I really didn't mind. We talked about stringing them on ribbon to wear as jewelry. Once again the day ended with a good memory.

If you see me in the next days or weeks and I have a shell necklace on, you'll know I am wearing a symbol of my little girls on a ribbon, a happy thought of a cloudy day when God tossed us little treasures and we picked them up.