Beach exploring/ lighthouse magic

Oh how I love living on the coast :)

Town Beach Sunset

Its one of those things I never take for granted... the ability to get three kids in a car and have them out of it again within 10 minutes and racing down a sandy slope is just something I will never get tired of. All three of my gang love the beach. Jumeirah, the eternal explorer, heads straight for rock pools and " the mountains" to climb, search and discover.

She often finds starfish, crabs, and last week she found a prawn! Its always exciting and shes learning to be gentle and quiet around these areas so as not to startle anything.

She has also recently discovered a great love for snorkelling which, surprisingly, she is really good at. Hubbin and I used to go snorkelling alot prekids so she and daddy head out together to explore. Jared, a rock pool dweller, often spotted crouching as low as he can go, hands tucked in, watching and waiting for something to move. Hes a bit more cautious about picking things up, normally he waits until Jumeirah has done it first:)

Crab sand balls: Jared watched so quietly, until a tiny crab popped out the top and he squealed :) Didnt take the photo fast enough


My Explorers

He is slowly overcoming his fear of water and waves.Amahli is a fish through and through, no fear of the water, has loved the beach from the first time we took her as a baby. She is farily independent in her exploring too but gets excited over Jumeirahs treasures as well.

For the first time, she spent ages making this drip castle a bit further back from the waters esge. I was totally fascinated watching how precise this little 1 year old was in creating this. She really is quite amazing :)

Coming home they are relaxed and happy, beach air does that to you :)

Tonight I took Jumeirah and Jared on a night adventure. For weeks, Jared has asked to go visit the light house just near to where we live ( I think this came about after watching a Thomas episode, apparently a boat nearly crashes and they have to save the lighthouse and get it working again) almost every day. We have gone a fair bit during the day, on the way to pick up Jumeirah from school. But of course the light doesnt work during the day. So I thought that we would go see if it worked at night!

Its incredibly dark out there. I am not a fan of the dark and neither is Jumeirah. There is also very little railing and so the drive out had me worrying about whether this was such a good idea. Once we got there and they realised what we were doing, they were excited but also commenting on how "scary" it was.

( ok, my night lighthouse photos arent fantastic I know. But you get the idea :) )

I left the car lights on, and manned with the light from my mobile and a torch, we set up the hill to the light house. And guess what?!?! IT ACTUALLY WORKS! Yes I did have my doubts whether it would ( well, I didnt know if it was an all the time thing, or a storm thing or what!) and so we sat and watch the sweeping arm of light cast huge shadows over the rocky cliff. We counted stars. We watched for shooting stars, we listened to the roar of the ocean, smashing against the rocks. It was really quite amazing, sitting there, taking in the awesomeness of the night sky and how huge it really is.
I hugged them close, told them to make a wish.

Jumeirahs wish?
"I wish we could do this again" :)

Indescribable, uncontainable, You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name, You are amazing God.....

( Chris Tomlin)