The Beach in January

Some weeks seem to fly and others last forever. This week was a week that flew by but it wasn't really because we were busy. It was just regular life moving swiftly and as I looked back over the week I was a little stumped. Was there even anything to write about? But as they say, everyday moments make the best memories so here we go with our weekly run-down.

I mentioned to someone the other day that I only see Jared in three things - his uniform, his pajamas, and his church suit. I should probably amend that to include workout clothes since he wears them out the door each morning.  Jared's favorite pajamas are these amazing flannel pants he got for Christmas. As you can see, he can really rock some plaid flannel. Look at that power pose!

In my first art of homemaking post, I wrote about the first facet of homemaking which includes appearance. I've made an effort over the past month to get all the way ready every day, including makeup. It's honestly a big change for me. I used to only wear makeup if I was going somewhere like church, it definitely wasn't an everyday thing. It's been going well but I sometimes don't recognize myself in the mirror. What do you think? Is it too much? I worry I'm overdoing the eyebrows just a bit.

For Natalie and Samantha, it's been a week of creativity. The kids didn't have school on Monday and Tuesday and they spent most of their free time watching videos on YouTube to help them perfect their origami and rainbow loom skills. They've continued creating in their free time after school and over the weekend. I'm kind of sick of finding colorful rubber bands all over the place but I love that they're spending their time making something instead of just staring at the television.

It was a week of creativity for me as well, actually. I sewed three skirts and one scarf and all from one three-yard piece of fabric. Initially, the plan was just to sew a maxi skirt for me but when I was finished I realized that there was still plenty of fabric left to make something else. So, I made Natalie a matching maxi skirt! There was still more fabric to be used though and this morning I took a half hour and sewed Samantha a cute pencil skirt and a matching scarf.

I think Emily was feeling the creative bug as well because she suddenly decided to make a pie, something she'd never attempted to do before. She did a pretty good job with just one easily corrected misstep when she was working on the crust. Emily went with a chocolate chip cookie pie filling and we were all excited to test the fruits of her labors! It was a delicious pie and Emily has decided that she's #wifematerial

I don't want to leave Abigail out here, I'm sure she's done something creative as well but mostly she was a bookworm this week. She finished reading Salt to the Sea and To Kill a Mockingbird.

On Saturday morning we met another family in our ward at church and gave the building a good cleaning. I know it doesn't sound like fun, but we love cleaning the church building! It's nice to do something tangible to help our ward family and to give back by taking care of our building. Plus, Jared and I feel as if it helps our kids to have more respect for the building if they've had a part in its upkeep. The church building here is the smallest we've ever met in so it took all of an hour to complete our work and that included a break for donuts and chocolate milk.

Instead of coming home afterward and spending a lazy day at home we decided to spend our day out. First, we headed to a Turkish barber shop so Jared could get a decent haircut. It seemed like every other guy in Thetford had the same idea so it ended up being a two-hour long adventure. While Jared waited his turn, the girls and I fed the ducks and seagulls and swans some bread. Did you know a seagull can catch a piece of bread in midair? It was pretty cool to watch. We also wandered around and found tons of thrift stores (called charity shops around here) and in one we even found a rainbow loom and tons of bands which we had to buy for the girls. I think we'd window shopped, thrift shopped, and wandered for about as long as we could stand before Jared had finally wrapped things up at the barber.

I wasn't sure what else we should do with our Saturday but I had a couple of ideas so I ran them by Jared and let him decide. I hate being the one to make the decisions but I'm happy to float options for someone else to choose. It was between seeing the movie Sing and going out to lunch or heading to the seashore and going seal-watching. I wasn't surprised that the seals at the beach won over lunch and a movie.

It was a bit of a drive, just over an hour, but we found our way to Horsey Beach.  We parked but still couldn't see the ocean anywhere nor did it smell like the seashore. There were signs pointing us in the direction we needed to go - beach 2.3 kilometers. So we set off through the slightly muddy fields and hoped we'd eventually see or smell the ocean. It was a sunny day if a bit cold and windy. Even though we weren't very far from home the landscape was distinctly different from what we're used to seeing around here.

Green fields, tall grasses blowing in the wind, cute little houses. It was just a beautiful day. 

Eventually, we could see an enormous line of sand dunes in front of us and the green fields gave way to marshy lands with brown scrubby grass, gnarled twisted trees, and spiky tufts of greenery. As we got even closer to the dunes we could see a large pass that was cut straight through the sand. That had to be the way to the beach!

You can just barely see the ocean behind us. Sadly it's not the beautiful blue water we were hoping for. Also, it's not a group picture lately without a sour-looking Samantha. She was having fun until right before this was taken!

We weren't sure we'd see any seals at all because a lady in the parking lot had told us that we were at the wrong beach for seal watching. Once we made it through the pass and on to the beach we figured we had to be in the right place. There were too many other people there for it to be the wrong beach. Why else would a bunch of people be standing around on a beach in England in January? The first seal we saw was a little one that was all by itself. Abigail got a seal selfie with the cutie!

The majority of the people were a little further down the beach so we headed that way to see if they knew something we didn't. They did. There were so many! From far away they kind of blend into the rocks but those lumpy things behind us are actual seals.

Natalie and Samantha were more interested in trying to build a sandcastle (without buckets or shovels)
 than looking at the seals. 

This little guy was just hanging out between some rocks looking sweet 

It was pretty cool to see all these animals on the beach and think that they've been making their way to this same beach every winter to breed for probably, well, forever. In my opinion, it was definitely worth the drive as well as the long walk to and from the beach.

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