We had a pirate treasure hunt for the kids on Friday morning.

Conveniently, we needed to let the 20 or so hermit crabs go that the boys had found snorkeling.  So it gave us the perfect excuse to walk down to the beach that morning, while Brice and Colton hid the treasure back near the house.

The water was so blue and beautiful I literally almost cried.  Because I knew it was our last day.

All of the coolest shells had hermit crabs in them.

Seriously, look at that pretty clear water.

It was like taunting us.

I can just hear the waves saying, "Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah you're leaving tomorrow."

But anyway, the boys suddenly spotted a floating bottle!

"A bottle with a note in it!"  Jace was so excited.  It definitely made our walk to the beach worth it.  Why did I not have the video camera on instead?  

It was so cute to hear them all so giddy with excitement.  People around us were looking over and smiling.  Probably had tears of overwhelming cuteness in their eyes. 

Cameron kept holding his map in the air saying, "I can't believe it.  I just can't believe it."

I wonder how long we will be able to pull off little stunts like this.  At what age will the older two boys start to wonder, "Hmmmm, how convenient.  We just happened to go drop off the crabs at the exact moment a bottle was floating by?"

"The bottle appeared at the exact moment the last crab was tossed into sea?"

"There just happened to be 4 identical maps, and there are four of us?"

"The map leads the exact same way we detoured yesterday on our walk home from feeding the ducks?"

It makes me laugh.  And smile.  I know it won't last forever but I hope they believe in this kind of magic for quite some time.

I love our four little pirates!

On Thursday evening we took some family pictures.  Some of them turned out really really good. . . and then others not so much.

These first three were great.  Well with the exception of my two brat boys in the third one.

It seemed that my children were done taking pictures.  They were tired.  They were bored.  And they were sick to death of having the camera aimed in their direction.

The more and more pictures I took, the less cooperative they became.

When we had to change from our black and white clothes into our teal clothes, they were officially finished.

They managed to hang on to their last single shred of self control--which wasn't much, if you take a look  back at that smaller family picture--but when I wanted some of the three of them. . . 

Livvy kept shrieking.

And Jace kept eating her flower.

They stared off distracted at something. . .

And Jace kept making crazy face. . .after face. . .

after face.

Threats of extreme punishment did not help.

And Cam was losing any alertness he may have had.

But I kept trying.  Thinking, just one more shot.  Just maybe the perfect one will come.

Until finally I just pushed one picture too much.

And Cameron had to resort to other methods to get me to stop.

And Jace's face says it all.

But I only had myself to blame.  So I couldn't be mad.  Even at this boy who physically could not have a normal face.

Angel Livvy did fine.  She loved sitting by her  brothers and eating sand.

Except for when I tried to make her stop eating sand.

But she never stays mad for long.

So we didn't get a great huge frame-able picture of just us.  But we got some memories.