the beach redeemed

As I posted earlier we have been taking trips to the beach for a bit of sanity. As many of you Chi-towners know we did this at least once a day in Chicago all summer (I say "at least" because in reality some times on the weekend it was 3 times a day, what can we say we love the beach!). The beach represents grit and renewal, busyness and calm, and I think God meant for us to frequent it often to gain perspective. And we thought Annikah agreed with us as well until we moved halfway across the world where you can (in fact you must) go to the beach to cool off year round and then she decided she hates it. We thought, hmmmm? weird phase? She will get over it but alas every time we took her she would scream about the sand being "yuck!" on her feet. I was heard more than a few times mumbling "kid you picked the wrong time to be scared of getting dirty, we just moved to Africa" but her protests continued despite my lack of sympathy. This was unexceptable to us, we cannot have a kid that dislikes the beach in our family! Well, I am pleased to announce due to our persistence Annikah has decided while she still prefers sitting on a kanga while on the sand she does love swimming in the water (we are working our way up). She especially loves watching Papa and his friend swim all the way out to a dock and then jump off. She had a great time and our friends also brought their newly acquired (we think someone threw it over their gate) puppy that Anni loved holding. I even got a chance to swim as it was a resort-ish beach where Mzungu frequent so I could actually don a swim suit (which I must say feels sooo weird after only seeing people completely covered all the time). It was nurturing to my soul, ahh the beach.