Sore smile muscles

mybeautifulhandful
I have more photos (shocker) of our beach day and I want to share them because toward the end of the day I realized that I had been smiling so much that my face hurt. (And I was not in any of the photos). It was just a day of pure unadulterated joy.  The last time I remember my smile muscles hurting was on my wedding day (and not so much for joy as for posing.)
On the drive to the beach, nobody bickered, nobody whined, the kids laughed and joked and sang along to the music together (which made me well up with tears behind my sunglasses more than once), thanks to everyone’s cooperation Ella was happy and content(even though she was past her naptime and in fact fell asleep only five minutes from our destination.)
And when she woke up she found her happy place.  And since it is my happy place too, it warmed me to my core.
(Ok well at first she had just woken up and then it rained…and she was wet…and so she was a little bit bemused.

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But the rain soon stopped (and it had washed all the crowds away and the temperature was juuuust right and it was simply the perfect beach day)
And soon she warmed to the theme… got to digging with her brothers and in no time she was an old pro
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I took this series of pictures as she dug away, later in the afternoon. She was sitting alone and she was absolutely and thoroughly delighted with life. I know it looks as though someone was making her laugh, but really and truly, she was all alone, chuckling away,  just amazed at how incredibly wonderful it was that she had all this sand to dig in and a cute little hat to wear too. Ellabeth’s life was GOOD.  I almost cried watching her. 
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The other kids were in love with life too….
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And I was in love with them
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This one says it all….
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OK folks, terribly sorry but I have a disease and it involves taking pictures compulsively and on occasion every single one of them makes me smile and then my disease extends to posting as many pictures on my blog as I can fit.  Which means that this series will need to continue for at least the next week. Because yes, there are that many photos and I LOVE THEM ALL.  So if you hate pictures of beaches and cute kids and happiness then you might want to skip the blog for the next few days. Fair warning.

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1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love Ella's joile le vivre (sp!!! as you know, never did learn French!) and yours too. Why did you not send the picture you were struggling with via e-mail?? Lovely to be able to be out doors all day and not die of sunburn or sun stroke! I look forward to the "series" pictures. They make me happy in winter (tomorrow marks the last day and then it is downhill to summer)