Barrenjoey Head

Our summer holidays have been bumbling along, sometimes good, sometimes a little tedious, and sometimes just a little too busy. 

Today we had visitors in the morning, then headed down to Palm Beach. I have many good memories of this beach, walking to the lighthouse, parties and youth group activities on the beach, but somehow our girls haven't been here before. So today, despite the 33deg heat, we headed up the headland to the lighthouse.  The scenery and lighthouse are so spectacular, (although half the headland still looks bare from a bushfire in Sept 2013). We huffed and puffed and sweated up the hill but it was worth it to get to the lighthouse. Fortified by snacks, we made the descent, feeling hotter each minute, our minds focused on getting into the water at the bottom of the hill. Soon (after watching a few wedding parties arrive and leave) we were in the water, and feeling blissfully cool. Dinner was chicken and salad in our little beach shade tent, the sun was still beating down at 6.30pm. The girls swam again and then after the sun slipped behind the hills we headed home. 

I would call 2015's first Family Outing a success. I'm glad we persisted, despite the heat and certain teenage complaints and moans, that same teenager was the first to reply with a big "yes!" when I asked "do you girls have a good time?" on the way home. We plan to have one family outing a month this year, otherwise the weeks just fly by and we haven't taken time out together.

We have just another 10 days or so before school starts again, so I'm glad we've made some good beach memories today. As Emily heads for her last year of school I'm all too aware that childhood doesn't last forever and we need to make things like this happen while we still can.