After settling Kelsey into her dorm and partaking in our Orientation, we headed East for one last taste of Summer at the beach. Hurricane Irene had just passed and we were thankful that its effects were minimal on the island that we have vacationed on over the last 30 years. What a trove of treasures we encountered on our first walk on the beach! Buckets full, like no other time in the past, weighed down our hands. We gathered and gathered what the ocean had to offer us.
Conch shells or whelks, lay within inches of each other in twos and threes.
We found shells that we had never seen before and that are often found only in deeper waters. Colors of various hues and shapes of all sizes. I washed and dried them and used many to decorate both the inside and outside of the house. You will have to wait until I can get down there again to take more pictures with my "real" camera. The pictures taken on my cell phone did not do them justice.
Sand dollars were littering the beach, as well as a few injured starfish. Below is a picture of a frame that I crafted with one of the starfish that we bleached. This is one of the only pictures that turned out halfway decent!
This frame and another one will work in the girl's bedroom with the hues of the ocean mimicked in the colors of the room.
As we spent the last day relaxing in the warm sun with the boys playing on the beach, our youngest son came over to me and sat on my lap. Now that he is ten, that does not occur as frequently as it used to, so I relished the moment. He curled up and as I snuggled him I breathed in the intoxicating scent of sunscreen and salt water and mourned the end of these days of unhurried living and daylight until nine (as well as the fact that next summer those events of snuggling up to mom will be even fewer.)
Until next summer...
when the waves of both oceans and flowers will be part of our landscape again.
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