We got to the beach about 10:30 a.m. and stayed for 5 – 6 hours. In all that time, the girls were out of the water about thirty minutes – to eat, go to the bathroom, and play in the sand. The rest of the time they spent trying to ride their boogie boards over the waves and out to sea.

I spent 30 minutes in the water, and the rest of the time under a canopy, in the shade, reading a book and snacking on Doritos. So why are they now playing excitedly in the living room while I am wondering if it’s rude to eat dinner in my pj’s?

Since my mother-in-law was with us on the beach, I’m pretty sure the dining dress code is “relaxed” at best. I’m also pretty sure bedtime will come a little earlier tonight than usual.

I hope the girls remember to turn off the t.v. when they go to bed.

Me: Lord, this is awesome. Sitting on the beach, nice breeze, watching the girls play in the water. Can this PLEASE be my life?

Lord: Yo, stupid, isn’t that YOU sitting there? Who’s life am I watching?

Me: Never mind.

Some things that happened today in our quest for the beach:

1. After we’d FINALLY gotten every one and every thing loaded into the van, it wouldn’t start.

2. As we were pulling into Cosco, our van overheated.

3. While we were sitting at Cosco, cousin RimFire says, “What’s that?”. It was a fake penis laying beside the car. AWESOME.

4. I panicked and told the girls it was something “gross and dirty” and not to look at it, ensuring years of counseling in their future.

5. The girls said “How much further?” and “I’m starving!” 212 times.

6. About an hour outside of St. Simon’s, I realized I’d forgotten the  dress Moon was planning on wearing to this week’s graduation.

7. We stopped at Belk so I could buy ANOTHER dress, the fourth in this pursuit.

8. The van overheated again.

9. We finally got to St. Simon’s where Stanley had a Bloody Mary waiting.

10. I decided I’m never leaving. Could someone please mail me my things? I only brought one bathing suit.

Team Tyre had a busy weekend, as USUAL, and we capped it off with Sunday night worship at Passion City Church. For those of you not familiar, PCC opened it’s doors on May 15th, and it is awesome. Surely you’ve heard of Louie Giglio? Chris Tomlin? JESUS?

No? Well, check out their website and listen to the sermons, cause they ROCK. JD told me before we went that in NO WAY were we going to make a habit of going every Sunday. It’s downtown, for crying out loud! Moon told me before we went that she wanted to go EVERY SUNDAY, cause the kids actually meet in tents. Tents, inside the kids area, instead of separate rooms. I’m sure there must be something wrong with it, because it looks like way too much fun to be biblical. I’m not sure how often we’ll actually get to go, but I hope it’s a bunch. On the one hand, I really like my church, on the other, I got to sleep IN. Hello?

I’ve been looking forward to visiting Passion City all week, in part because I love Louie Giglio’s sermons, but also because I knew I would get to hang with some of the Church Ladies. Do you know that my friend Mantamy HATES it when I call her a Church Lady? She thinks it makes us sound like this:

Although I think my side ponytail and scrunchy is about to make a comeback.

We need a new term for ladies that do church and frankly, I’m just the person to think of one. You many not know this, but I’ve coined two, new phrases over at the Urban Dictionary. True Story. I came up with “Skankini” which is a tankini worn by a skanky girl, (as in, Look at that Skankini! You can see her butt tattoo!) and “Slanghai” which is when someone steals your slang and claims it as their own. (My mother keeps telling everyone she came up with Skankini! She totally slanghai’d my word!)

So I’ve been trying to think of a new term to describe women who love Jesus, but don’t wear denim jumpers. Here’s a few of my favorites:

Faithful Femmes

GAL-ations

Church Chicks

Bible Babes

the Christies

the SisterGood of the Traveling Saint

I know what you’re thinking, these are ALL good.  Being super creative has its drawbacks – I just can’t choose. Take the poll and help me decide, or if you think you have a better idea leave a comment and I’ll add it. The winner gets a used tankini from 2002. Wearing it with a butt tattoo is strictly prohibited.

I don’t know what you did yesterday, but unless it included trying on a bathing suit, consider yourself lucky. Nothing like putting your legs into a GRANNYFIED one-piece with built in Lycra and hearing it rip because you’ve exceeded it’s fat-holding capabilities.

Awesome.

I didn’t leave the house in search of a bathing suit, I was searching for Moon a dress, but while I was there I figured why not go for a little self torture.

After I found something that I thought MAYBE would work for my daughter to wear, I went in search of something for me. We have a graduation to go to next week and as much as I would LOVE to wear my jeans and Indian tunic, it might be a little too hot. The weather, not the outfit, as if that needs to be clarified.

So while I was shopping in age appropriate corners of Belk, I found myself shoulder to shoulder with a woman using a walker AND a cane. And she looked better in her clothes than I did. Which is why, when she DROPPED her cane, I just went on about my shopping, thank you very much Miss Strutting-My-Stuff-at-Eighty.

I didn’t find a dress but I did find another tunic from India for 10 bucks. Tunics cover my behind, need I say more?

Speaking of INDIA, while I was there, I borrowed a pair of linen pants from Andrea Auntie and they were so comfortable I immediately began to covet them. I mean, I began to pray for her and her expensive tastes. Today while I was walking through Target looking for Moon some shoes (Seriously, a dress AND shoes? Can you say “spoiled”?) I found some linen pants!

Kittens, you have to know that I will NEVER wear mine with a shirt tucked inside and a pair of dress shoes. I will wear mine with flip flops and a TUNIC. Way better.

Several more stops and I FINALLY found a dress that didn’t make me look like this –

Not from the front anyway. I didn’t look at the rear view. A girl can only take so much in one day.

A few weeks ago I was hitting the yard sales with my mother when I found a table full of Webkinz for sale. If you’re not familiar, Webkinz are stuffed animals that also have a virtual version online. To access the virtual version, you enter in the code on their website. Normally they run about ten bucks each, but this lady had a bag full for .50 cents a piece. All of the codes were still attached, so I thought, “Heck YES!” There was a small part of me that thought maybe the codes had been used, but there was a LARGER part of me that figured Webkinz probably reused their codes and they would just have to suffer for their lack of thinking this thing through.

Fast forward to today. Moon has been at horse camp all week and yesterday she asked if her riding friend Karla could spend the night tonight. The girls swam, had dinner, watched Ratatouille.

(Side bar, is that the most disgusting movie ever?? It is a RAT, cooking your food! The whole thing kinda creeps me out.)

After the movie they went outside to catch fireflies and look at the moon through our telescope. Finally, with nothing left to do outside, they climbed into bed and asked to play a few games on the computer. Which brings me back to Webkinz. See, Karla hadn’t been introduced to the site, so I thought it would be a GREAT idea to bring out the bag of animals I had purchased and let her pick one. She chose a rabbit and I went through all of the “Adopt-A-New-Pet” steps, setting her up with a password, etc.only to find that the code had been used, and they wouldn’t let us use it AGAIN. Man, Webkinz, way to suck all the fun out of yard sale shopping! So I tried the next one. And the next one. And the next one. Picture two little girls in the bed, crossing their fingers, their toes, their legs, their arms, hoping against hope that FINALLY, one of the codes would work. Picture someone ,who shall remain nameless, randomly putting in numbers and letters trying to get lucky. Sigh.

Which is how I found myself at WalMart at ten o’clock wearing sweat pants, my shirt from India, (without certain other garments that most people find essential for public forays I might ADD), flip flops, no makeup and pool hair – searching through the Webkinz bin and hoping no one I knew had suddenly run out for coffee. I told JD as I left that if I didn’t come home in an hour to call the police. He gave me a look that said, “Riiiiight, someone is going to kidnap YOU.”

Well, at least Karla is happy and I didn’t run into anyone I knew. I’m pretty sure that no one saw me.

Crap.

Zolligirl has a goal, Kittens, to keep you looking as good as she does. That is why she is showing you the hottest trend in hair. Truthfully, you need some work, Girl. You need ombre hair.

Coloring your roots is so yesterday.

You’ll never look as fabulous as Zolligirl and other professional models, running to the hairdresser every six weeks.