My Second Love, Cayucos

I absolutely love living in the country.....the solitude, the room to roam, to plant gardens, keep animals, all of it! However, if I couldn't have country, I would take Cayucos! I know, I'm such a sacrificer! :-) For everything that I love about where we live, I love Cayucos for one major difference. We don't have to get into a car the entire time we're there.....we walk (a real novelty for us country folk) everywhere: the video store, the grocery store, my morning coffee at the bakery, the park, restaurants, the library. Sometimes we walk when we don't need to...just because we can!

Seriously though, the thing that I appreciate the most about being at the beach is the way that it restores my soul. It is the one place that I can go and just be, if that makes sense. I don't have to run errands, clean house, feel productive. The girls and I go downstairs where they play for hours and hours with no complaining, arguing, screaming (except when a dog runs past Lauren) and I sit in my chair and read, listen to the waves and the girls' giggles and soak up the sunshine (or the clouds if it's overcast, I don't care). Sometimes I just watch the water and think, how can anyone doubt the existence of our Creator? "Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and all that move in them" Psalm 69:34. I think of God creating the ocean, standing back and saying, "It is good" and all the while knowing that we would be created and would daily fail to recognize the beauty of it, to recognize Him in it. Thank you Lord for your creation; it is good...it is very, very good!

(Top picture: Taken from the living room where I was watching Emma play - she is the little object just above the aloe, down on the sand holding a big piece of seaweed)