Today was to be an unusual scorcher of a day here in Orange County. This could only mean one thing, Beach Day!!
We took off to our favorite beach, to meet our cousins and stay cool, enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the company. It was a beautiful day at the beach.
There are no longer life guards on duty, at one point I went for a bathroom break. When I came back, I noticed a lifeguard jeep out by the water- and then I watched as it slowly left. I asked my sister-in-law if there was a reason they came out? S-I-L replied back that they had to tell some boys on boards to get away from the rocks. I answered with a lazy, "oh". A few seconds went by, and then I said..."um, our boys are the only people on boards in the area..." S-I-L sat up really quick, surprise and mortification on her face, and she said "you're right!" my last comment was a scandalized ...."my, my, now WHERE were their mothers??!!" Yeah, our boys were the trouble makers and S-I-L didn't even register it.
**********
We are looking for a sport for Demi-Sky. Now that Teddy is no longer schooling with us, we kind of feel like he needs some kind of physical activity that involves team work with other boys. I think we've narrowed it down to lacrosse. I found a website for our county, but I was having difficulty contacting the coaches for the two teams near us, so we decided to try a club team a little further away. We figured that "club" means more expensive, but the price I found was steep, but not impossible. The other teams I looked at did not have any pricing information available...sigh, you think in the age of handy-dandy websites it would be easier to find all the information you need.
Anyways, in typical Jen-fashion (in which everything takes longer than is should and is more complicated then it should be and the end result is always un-finished....) I decided to go ahead and sign up for the club team, even though I still felt a bit in the dark about when practices were, and where...but today was the first day for sign ups and they were running a discount if you signed up today...so I went through the very long and involved process of signing him onto the team- and then had to go through the long and involved process of getting him a US membership so we could finish signing him up for the team...and then I got to the check-out page and the price was more than twice what had been stated on the website!! It listed a really steep late sign-up fee... I think it was a typo someone did, late fees start next month. Yeah, so I left a phone message and an email and yeah, we are in limbo now with this. Ugh.
On the bright side, now the kind of steep fee doesn't seem so steep after seeing it doubled!! I guess we will kind of feel like we got it on sale, if they straighten this out and go back to the first fee listed!
**************
Dr. Who. Wow, "Angels take Manhattan" was anyone else a blubbering, upset mess when it finished? A real and satisfying end for the Ponds, but emotionally hard.
***************
I'm on another Grace Livingston Hill run. She was this Christian writer that wrote in the 1930's and 1940's. They are a fun lunch read. I collect her original hardback editions. She wrote over 100 books, and I think I have read almost all of them (I used to work in a Christian book store when I was in High School and College-a perk, I could borrow books!) but I only own maybe 20 of the hardbacks. I re-read them over and over. Always with lunch or a snack, they make me hungry. She lived through the depression and so, I theorize, she appreciated really good food- and took pains to describe delicious, dainty lunches. She also hated flappers and abhorred girls who smoked. I love how a scandalous vamp will often show up in the story.
**************
I tried these dairy- free, oil-free pumpkin muffins Sunday night. I had to add chocolate chips though. I guess they weren't dairy-free after that... They were pretty good, Sky was not real convinced, the texture was a bit different because of the apple sauce used instead of oil. I think it was an okay trade-off for a healthier muffin. (whisper, except for the chocolate chips) the kids and the Bible college boys gobbled them up. }We've always looked forward to making the Trader Joe's pumpkin muffins, but I really thought they were too oily.
*Here's the recipe from S.B. Creatively blog. (found on pinterest!)