beach days and sweet 16

the weather is finally bearable. around 70 during the day, so obviously we've been spending a lot of time at the beach. i love the beach in the fall/winter - very few crowds, great sunsets, and a lot of animals around.

this weekend we went to a school play for one of our youth kids - he was definitely the star of the show. they kept making announcements about cupcakes that would be for sale at intermission, so the entire first act, all i could think about was cupcakes. at intermission, matt and i kept saying that we hoped the cupcakes were only a quarter so we could get 4....(we only had a dollar in cash). imagine our horror when we got to the cupcake stand and they were two dollars! per cupcake! i couldn't believe it - and there was a line snaking around the building to buy these! cupcakes. mob mentality at work again. i wonder if anyone stopped to ask themselves, 'why am i paying 2 dollars for 1 cupcake??' actually, who am i kidding? if we would have had 2 bucks, i would have downed that overpriced cupcake so fast....

saturday, we went to a sweet 16 birthday party for one of our youth girls. it had all the elements of a great birthday party - shaving cream fights, pizza and candy, red rover, and a ton of group games i haven't played for years. i'll admit, i spent the shaving cream fight sitting in our car with the doors locked, but it was a blast.

yesterday, went on a picnic after church by the intercoastal waterway. just when we started eating, a group of dolphins started playing in the water 50 yards out. there was even a baby fin next to one of them. it was all i could do not to jump in with them, and live out my fantasy of being a dolphin trainer...