Bella at the Beach

We try to spend our weekends around here living life to the fullest. The last few weekends have been packed full of summer fun. Two weeks ago, Adam decided, as the rain storms were coming to the end in the evening, that we should spend what was left of the day at the Wolf Run State Park lake beach. Sounded good to me, so I threw together some beans and taco sauce, put some chips in a bag, and we put the kids and our makeshift dinner in the car. It was a wonderfully exhausting evening. The rain was just stopping as we arrived, but if it hadn't been it wouldn't have stopped us. The only difference would have been that I wouldn't have captured such great images. With the luck I've had lately with my lenses (my 28-135 dropped and returned fixed only to bust my wonderful 50mm), I definitely would NOT have taken it out in the rain. I have so many great images that I'm breaking this fun weekend down into posts per child.

Bella had fun in the water and in the sand. She made some new friends and was off immediately, but eventually we coaxed her back for time with the family. She had some things to say about that...

But once I got her posing for some pics she was fine.

She's my long and lanky girl, all sprawling arms and legs, just like I was as a girl.

She practiced her "diving" skills.

And she got buried in the sand, which was so totally fun.

The escape is half of that fun, though.

The older she gets, the harder it will be to coax her into spending time with us. She always wants to go off and make new friends, to find someone new and more fun than us. But I know that with all of that time spent looking away from us for fun, there will come a day when she will want to come home, because we take times like these to make her stick around and strengthen those family bonds that will forever tie her to us. That's what a family is for.