Goodbye, beach!

Today was my last morning at the beach. Something about the sights, sounds, and smells of that place just makes me want to sit in a chair and do absolutely nothing for a few moments of bliss. I could listen to the seagulls and the waves crashing on the shore for hours at a time and be completely content. But I miss the heck out of my animals, so we are headed home. We farmed out a horse, a cat, and a dog for this trip, so I know at least three creatures who are really ticked at me. The corgis had company last night when the neighbors came to swim, so they shouldn't be too miffed. Honestly, it's our menagerie of animals that keeps us from traveling more than we do. Time to thin the herd! (Yeah, right.)

My big girls spent their beach time with their grandparents, so the baby was on her own with us. She wormed her way into our bed for the first time since she was a crying, nursing newborn this weekend. It was just too hard to turn her down when she opened the door and said, "Can I sleep with y'alls?" (Y'alls is the plural of y'all, for those of you who don't speak Sheridan.)

She may have been in bed with us, but there sure wasn't much sleeping going on. She tossed, turned, flipped, talked, sang, kicked us in the back, smacked us in the face, touched our faces, pulled my hair...pretty much anything and everything she could do but let us go to sleep. She has been sleeping with her sisters all summer (they fight over whose turn it is every night) and sometimes they will say, "I'm just too tired tonight. I don't want her to sleep with me." Now I know EXACTLY what they mean by that. It is by no means a restful sleep when Sher is in your bed.

We are almost home, and I can't wait to see my animals and sleep in my own bed. I have a new barrel horse that I love, and it almost killed me not to go barrel racing this weekend. Our beach trip was planned long before we got Hank and we were all looking forward to it, so off to the beach we went. It was oddly quiet this weekend, as the baby didn't have anybody to fight with and could watch whatever she wanted on tv. Now the gang's back together again, and if you're wondering how long it was before they started fighting, wonder no more. It was at least 30 seconds.