Beach Babies

While the cat is away, the mice will play...

Phil is out on the Charles de Gaulle doing a "mini mission" for five days, so it's been a bit of a long weekend for me. I used to spend his deployments wandering through Target stores for hours at a time, eating dinner out with friends, and road tripping to visit family. But here, all those things are impossible. And I understand that Phil being gone for five days is not anywhere close to a deployment, but I can't help myself from thinking what I will do when a real deployment does come while living here. And it WILL.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a happy post...so, on Saturday evening the kids and I packed a picnic dinner and headed to the beach. Have I mentioned how much I love that we can walk there...wow, I LOVE it! And if this place is lonely, at least it's breathtakingly beautiful.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner??? At 6:30??? Yeah, that's right, we're American!

It's technically not a speedo. But it's close enough. He's tough, though, don't you think he can pull it off? Maybe I'll get Phil a matching one?

And if she's not the prettiest beach girl ever, I don't know who is. This girl loves ocean. At only four years old, this girl has spent her summers playing in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and now the Mediterranean.

They had so, so much fun dancing and splashing around.

This is the Charles de Gaulle in the background. The ship came into the port at Toulon and we were able to watch it for awhile. The kids were so happy to see it and wave to their Daddy somewhere on board.

And after the walk home, which includes a pretty sizable hike up a hill, I gave the kids an ice cream bar. Zachary did not walk--he had a free ride in the stroller, where he sucked his thumb and happily kicked his legs--but does he look the kind of kid from which ice cream bars can be withheld? I think not!

And that's how we have fun while living in France when Daddy's is away.