Let's escape to the....

I'm in the thick of editing and quite predictable. Yep, I've turned on the instrumental Christmas station on Pandora. Just like every August! ;) Actually, I think I usually don't break down until September, so maybe it came a little early for me this year. For some reason Christmas instrumental music is super calming to me and I love listening to it while I'm strapped to my computer editing for hours. :)

Speaking of calm and peace, we enjoyed a few hours at the beach a couple weeks ago with our dear friend Sheri and her cute boys! Ah, it was a beautiful, warm August evening in Cannon Beach! My favorite! Even though it was brief, we soaked up every minute there. We grabbed our Insomnia coffee & chai teas and walked down to the beach. The kids had so much fun playing in the water, getting thoroughly and adorably soaked, then we changed them all into cozy clothes as the sun went down and we all went out for g-free pizza at our favorite place there. Ben fell asleep at the table and that was a first for any of our kids!! I got that "fell asleep at the dinner table picture" I've always secretly hoped for! (The deep dark secrets of photographer moms.) Haha!

The beach is always a soul refresher! The sound of the water drowns out so much daily noise commotion and the large stretch of sand & sea is so lovely and visually under-stimulating. Ahhhh... thank you Lord for the beach! :) 

We got stopped for an hour in traffic on the way to the beach due to bridge work. Lots of time to talk and read.

Grabbing our cozy drinks before hitting the sand.

We pointed the 24mm lens at ourselves and thank you Josh for taking one for the team! ;) When your face is that close to the lens it warps it and makes your forehead, nose and chin look extra big!! Josh was the closest and got it worse than Sheri & me! :)

This is what happens when all of the kids are busy playing and you ask them to stop for a group photo. ;) At least Ben was excited! 

Josh took them out to the waves and back...

Someone decided his soaking wet heavy shorts and underwear were no longer comfortable and decided to just leave them at water's edge...

Soaked, happy kids!

I LOVE these sand angel shots and here's why: the last time we went to the beach Jude had MAJOR anxiety the entire time we were there. He would only sit on a blanket and was very distressed by any sand on him at all ,and he constantly held his pant legs up to make sure they didn't touch sand. So we told him he would be wearing flip flops and rolled up pants and we figured that if he was forced right off the bat to feel the sand with his bare feet and his pants couldn't touch then he might "submerge" himself. And it worked. I was so thankful! He was free to get as messy as possible because he knew there was a dry clean change of clothes for afterwards, and we didn't bring socks/shoes so they weren't an option. We are learning!

Adorable bunch!! So thankful for precious friends!

Thank you Sheri for snapping this pic of our family! I sure love it!

Tired boy. So cute.