Sammy-J at the beach

It's rare when I get the chance to take SJ away from the rest of the family and enjoy some one-on-one time with her. One evening, we decided to ditch the rest of the crew and take a mommy-and-me trip to the beach. Oh, the fun we had! I was shooting some images for school, and SJ was playing in the sand. We got to the beach about 30 minutes before dusk, and enjoyed the peaceful shoreline.

Not far away from us was a large family who were also enjoying the shoreline. They had an arsenal of fireworks (it was the 4th of July), and were having a blast lighting them. Before I knew it, SJ had successfully crashed their party with her charming personality and was lighting bottle rockets with a little boy about her age. The scene was just too cute, but I had this frightful image that the moment was a foreshadowing of 10 years from now. I won't have too long with her before she ditches ALL of the family (including me), and finds some summer romance at the seashore. I guess I'll just have to hold on to her as long as I can until that happens, right?

Here are some snapshots of the evening. Enjoy!

SJ wanted me to take a picture of the seagull.

SJ's toys for the evening... that is, before she crashed a beach party.

She is just so at ease on the shoreline. You would think she lived on a tropical island or something.

In hindsight, I think this is a photograph of her planning her attack. It wasn't long after this shot that she was making friends and shooting off fireworks.

Her little friend was showing her how to do it safely. That line is the firework shooting up into the air.

Fireworks farther down the beach. A hotel was shooting these off.