one of those days

today we had one of those great, amazing, talk-about-for-a-long-time, kind of days-well, ok, technically it was only the late afternoon, but whatever!  anyway, after feeling so sick this weekend and being cooped up in the hot house, we decided to take a short drive to the beach.  we did our usual drive thru starbucks and then down to the coast.  we happened to pull up on the side of PCH, nestled our HUGE SUV in between a few cars just south of goldenwest.  we weren't planning on getting out, but the meter read "24"-which meant we had 24 FREE minutes until it would run out.  we quickly hopped outta the car and made our trek down the sand to the water.  the girls were so excited to be going to the beach (august thinks the water is literally "the beach").  i had put the camera in my pocket before we left, not to take pics, but because i was rushing and didn't think to just unload it onto the kitchen table.  so, i started snappin' away.  i got some of the most adorable candid pictures of the girls (the best kind in my opinion).  the weather was perfect (81 degrees at 5:45) and the sunset was breathtaking-"the magic hour," i think photographers call it.  even laypersons, like myself, can take reasonably good shots.  after spending about 30 minutes we decided it was time to leave.  mark and i walked hand in hand as the girls ran back across the sand toward the car.  we just looked at each other with HUGE smiles on our faces, knowing that the other was thinking this was the best part of our day, weekend, even.  it was only 35 or 40 minutes, but it was what we needed to remind us of how blessed we are.  the pics in the blog header are from that day and the following pics too!

so stinkin' cute

making sand angels...i decided to join her

then august decided to join us

i just love this girl

i am the luckiest girl!!!!  look at this hunk!