moon jellies.

the kids & i went to sandbridge this morning with every intention of having a photo shoot at the beach. yeah, that didn't exactly happen. first of all, the weather was gloomy. i wanted sunshine & rays of light in my pictures, not dark, gray clouds. second of all, after taking one step into the shore break, i heard nothing but squeals of delight...

moon jellies!

i'll spare you the science lecture, but moon jellies {or aurelia aurita} are pretty common on our beaches. they're harmless & i don't mind the kids playing with them. if you're curious to know more about moon jellies, then click here & here.

anyways. if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right? rather than making my kids pose for pictures they didn't really want to take i decided to just follow them around. i was the papamamarazzi, if you will.

the semi-matching outfits were totally malia's idea. coincidentally, i, too, was in a turquoise shirt. my favorite beach bum & her lil' man met us out at the beach and she offered to take a pic of me with the kids {since we were all in blue}. i politely declined. 

aidan - such a ham - was pretty bummed that he wasn't in his bathing suit. he was also mad that i wouldn't let him go swimming. still, he managed to soak his shorts while wading in the shore break. boys will be boys, i suppose! malia & aidan collected quite a few moon jellies. aidan wanted to bring them home. um, no. i'm trying to purge my home of unnecessary stuff...the last thing we need is a collection of remnant jelly fish strewn across the coffee table.

even though it was very cloudy it was still a great beach day because it was not hot & there was a nice breeze blowing. too bad big rain drops started to hit us...we were at the beach for maybe a half an hour...tops.  fortunately, we live just twenty minutes away so we can try again next time for a {proper} beach photo shoot.

either with or without the moon jellies.