Tradition: October Day at the Beach

It's been the most beautiful, sunny, warm stretch of perfect fall days that I can remember, and we've been cramming as much into them as possible.  Friday found me walking in the homecoming parade with Annie's Brownie troop, candy being thrown everywhere and a marching band leading us down the street, before going to a tailgate party with friends and the football game under the stars.

Yesterday morning I woke up early to run nine miles (my last long training run before the half next weekend).  The rest of the house was still sleeping when I left, but they were watching Saturday morning cartoons on the couch when I came back, and the day already promised to be hot and sunny.  So, even though we had an annual date with our neighborhood photographer for family photos in the early evening, we packed up the wagon and journeyed to Crane's to pick apples and then spent the rest of the afternoon at one of our favorite Lake Michigan beaches.  There's typically only one weekend each October when the weather feels like a last gasp of summer, and we couldn't let it pass by without continuing our annual tradition.

Sharing cherry pie after lunch.

Apple-picking!

The girls insisted on wearing their bathing suits even though the water was too cold for swimming.

A girl after my own heart . . .

art by Stephanie

art by Annie

art by Jemma

art by Jason

We paid for it later, of course, with tears and meltdowns just before (and during!!) family pictures.  Our photographer insists (based on her quick peeks at her camera screen) that the pictures will turn out great, but if they do, when you see them, imagine how "happy" we all were to be yanked back from the beach and hurried home to have hair curled and sandy bodies stuffed into jeans and wool sweaters only to stand, sweating, in a buggy field.  The girls expressed their happiness by refusing to hold hands or even so much as touch one another, letting their tongues loll fatly out of their mouths, lying down right in the grass between takes, and actually shoving one another and pinching each other's arms when they thought nobody was looking.

When you see them, know what there was true happiness that day.  It's just that it was more on the beach after apple-picking, and not as much in a field at sunset . . .