Way back when, I used to serve on a children's mission in Surf City, Long Beach Island, called CSSM (Children's Sand and Surf Mission). Essentially, we would go to the beach every morning and every evening, Monday through Friday, for two weeks in August, and do VBS (Vacation Bible School) on the beach for whoever wanted to come. It. was. awesome! Since getting married though, I haven't been able to even visit the mission, until this year!
My cousin, Candice, her kids, my sister, Katherine, my kids and I, all met up in LBI and visited our friends and the mission and it was glorious. LBI is truly one of my favorite places ever to be at and it was just so nice being there again, showing it all to my kids (who could probably didn't really care about my reminiscences, but were kind enough to humor me). And my sister was gracious enough to come to my house to make the drive with me and to help out with my kids - and to pay for everything when I realized I left my wallet at home!
Since there were two sites for CSSM, Candice and her kids went to one while Katherine, my kids and I went to the other - which was the one I actually served at. It was almost like coming "home." We had a great time watching the program and catching up a little with old friends, and making some new ones.
After the morning programs were over, Candice and I met up (you can just assume our kids were with us the rest of the time, I don't want to type it all over and over, Katherine too) at Woody's for lunch. The cousins were excited to see each other, and after we were all finished eating, we played some mini golf!
Once our golfing shenanigans were finished, our beach time shenanigans began. We went to the house were the team stays, changed into our swimsuits, then headed down to the beach! The kids had a great time playing in the ocean even though it was extremely rough and I had to catch them every so often so they wouldn't was away.
Finn was the worst. Every wave took him down and away and I had to scoop him up. One time a second wave came right after the first and took both of us down. I think I lost 3 years of my life due to the stress, but they had a great time, and in the end, that's all that matters.
When we'd (read: I) had enough of the rough waves, we went back to the house, showered, changed, then went back to Woody's for a dinner of ice cream sundaes! It's summer vacation, why not? Apparently the giant ice creams weren't enough for any of the kids because they all had hot dogs and fries and what's it afterwards. When dinner was finished, Candice went back to her beach mission for the evening program and we went back to ours.
When the program was over we used a friend's bathroom and made the long drive back home. It was truly and awesome day and I'm so glad we did it. Here's hoping we'll get an opportunity to make it back down there again soon!
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