And now, we mourn the end of the week

Please join me in a moment of silence as we observe the end of Beach Week '09.

Today was a little different than the rest of the week. SHOCKING, I KNOW. Jake developed a cough a couple of days ago, and he kept me awake most of the night because he was sleeping with his very active feet in my ribs. For those of you who regularly share a double bed with a spouse and a wiggly, coughing 15-month-old, I salute you. I handled it OK at the time for Jake's sake, but the rest of the day was set to the soundtrack of I'm So Tired I Want to Die. Do ditty dum do do ditty ditty dum.

Given our lack of sleep and subsequent lack of family-friendly personalities, Jake and I took a break from the beach today. We took a trip five minutes down the road to Kroger to get some cough medicine, and then came back and stayed inside the rest of the day. "Staying inside," to Jakey, is synonymous with "Making a break for the steps and seeing how many I can climb before Mommy catches me." It went on aaaaaalllllllllll day.

At lunch, we celebrated Bill's birthday. He is several candles old. The kids loved singing to him and helping him blow out the candles. I'm happy to report that the smoke detectors didn't go off.

Late this evening after supper, we took pictures of most of the kids with our "We Love Jonah" magnets. They have all been so excited to spend this week with him, celebrating his triumph over EB and his lust for life.

SPEAKING OF the little superstar, last night we spent about 15 minutes taking pictures of him, Matt and Patrice on the beach. It was wonderful to see how he enjoyed being in the breezy air, peaceful and happy as he could be.

Throughout the week we've taken lots of pictures of the individual families. IT TAKES A VILLAGE, PEOPLE. In some cases, it was just me and the parents. In others, it was me, the parents and the grandparents. And at one point a couple of days ago, I turned around from shooting a few and saw THIS, the Parental Paparazzi-turned-Entertainers, in all its glory.

They were apparently trying to get pictures of another set of kids, and they were giving it all they had.


And now I'll share a few of the shots of the families that are with us. Here are the Wheelers, of Florida.

These are their kids, Charlie, Anna Kate and Jack. Jack is like Jack-Jack in The Incredibles. He's super-fast and full of energy. The fact that he's not blurred out with movement in this picture is a triumph in itself.

Here are the Schwartzes of North Carolina.

I love this picture of Mikey and Ali because it looks like he cracked himself up and she's laughing at what he said. Such sweet siblings.

Coleman had to be manhandled to within an inch of his life to be kept from racing into the ocean every chance he got. A lot of my pictures included Heather dashing to catch him before he tumbled down the sand into the water.

These are the Tucker kids of New York. Grant, Abby and Will are always willing to pose. We didn't get a family picture this year because Andrew was feeling puny on picture days.

All in all, we got some good ones this year.

Now it's time to start packing up, comparing our purchased grocery list to groceries actually consumed so that we can better prepare for next year, and settling up with each other for expenses so we're all Even Steven. The markers of the end of the vacation. Oh, and let's not forget getting up sinfully early so we can be out of the house and have the keys returned by 10 a.m.

Then all that's left is the long drive home.