Name in the sand

Last week we were blessed to be able to spend two days at Atlantic Beach, N.C. for free.  My husband was thankfully able to take off work. We all really needed a break to do something different. 

We spent time with some relatives, on the beach, in the ocean, and in the pool.  We enjoyed writing in the sand with our fingers and with shells.  Our son H. recently learned to write the letter "H" and wrote dozens of "H's" in the sand. 

This was a great time of year to go because there were so few people there.

Of course Lilly was in our thoughts much of the time.  As we walked the beach our first evening, our daughter T. wrote "In loving memory of Lilly" in the sand.  (photo 2)

I love the pictures on the names in the sand blog and was really hoping to take one like them of Lilly's name.  I could see it clearly in my head while packing for the beach - the beautiful sunset beyond the ocean and Lilly's name sparkling in the sand before it.  It didn't hit me until we were almost to the beach that the sun probably wouldn't set in that direction over the ocean we were going to!

It turned out my guess was unfortuntately right.  The sun set  across the sand, not the ocean.  I took a bunch of pictures but thought it was interesting that only two turned out with some sun reflecting on the sand.  They look very pretty and peaceful.  But you can't see that reflection in any of the others for some reason.

The woman that takes the wonderful names in the sand photos is the same one that did the photo of Lilly's butterfly in the sand.  By the way, the notecards I had made of that picture turned out great!

Speaking of butterflies, I found out from another Trisomy angel mom that there is a mother that lost triplets that does butterfly releases in honor of other angel children.  Her blogspot is called triplet butterfly wings.  As she releases the butterflies, she takes pictures, which are beautiful.  My kids and I recently raised painted lady butterflies from caterpillars.  We released them by Lilly's garden hoping that we would get some great pictures of them crawling over Lilly's cherub statute.  But no luck.  Ours went crazy flying all around the yard.  "Wheeeeee!  We're free!" they all shouted.  So I requested a butterfly release for Lilly from the triplet's mom, and Lilly is on the waiting list.

Yesterday marked 5 months since Lilly went to be with Jesus.  It seems horribly long and yet in some ways fast.  My husband remembered her by wearing his "Lilly colored" tie to work:

T. drew a picture of Lilly's hand reaching for a lily flower:

Last week H. wanted to cut and glue some pictures.  I asked him what he would like me to print for him to use.  He asked for pictures of Lilly.  He said he needed them right by his bed so that he would see them when he woke up because it would help him remember about Lilly. 

On a completely different note, our two homeschoolers had quite a nature study today.  This morning when we were working in our office/schoolroom, we looked out the window and saw a big snake (Eastern Garter?) on our porch.  It had just come down from a hanging fern and had a bird feather hanging out of it's mouth.  Yuck!  We, like most people, think snakes are gross and creepy and yet really interesting.  Thankfully there were no baby birds in that plant like there have been all the other years we've been here.  After the snake ate the feather, it slithered down the porch rails and into a bush.  (You can see the snake in the first picture - it is the long dark thing to the left of the flower box - part of it is still in the flower box.)

We were worried about baby birds after seeing this.  We recently discovered that some birds (Carolina wrens?) had built a nest in H's seat on my bicycle and laid 5 eggs.  So after seeing the snake, we went to check and see if the eggs were still there.  As I pulled the bike out of our little shed to check, one of the parents knocked into my hand in its hurry to fly out of the nest.  We found that 3 of the eggs had hatched, and there were some hungry baby birds in that nest!