Last week, something happened that has haunted me. There were two bicyclists killed in Utah. They were friends who were riding their bikes to work together, and were hit by a truck. I didn’t know them, but some of my friends did, and it was so sobering to me, reading their obituaries and seeing the comments on Facebook. Two lives gone, just like that.

I think this story struck me so hard because of that two degrees of separation—but also because it’s something I worry about when I’m out running. I’m careful and I pay attention and I wear bright clothes, but it would be so easy to be hit by a car. Drivers don’t always pay attention, and trust me: they do not watch for pedestrians. You have to assume that every single car does not see you.

This is something I’m certain those men knew, and that’s what I mean: you can prepare and be careful, but sometimes death grabs you anyway.

This week, one of my scrapbooking friends, Monika, posted on Facebook about her father-in-law, who was missing. They found his body the next day. I was so touched by what she wrote:

“While it is overwhelming and sad and unthinkable for us now, we all know that Papa, loved by his family and adored by his many friends, passed where he was most at home, in his beloved mountains on the property his parents worked hard to own and preserve for future generations.”

The way we die is just one part of our life. Sometimes it defines entire years of our lives, sometimes just seconds. In the past five years, we have gone through a lot of illness and death in our family, and it has been painful and sorrowful and awful. I miss my dad and my in-laws so much.

And I hate the way they died.

My father-in-law suffered with cancer for a long time, but we thought he still had a year left, except suddenly he just didn’t, and even though we knew the end was closer than we liked, we had counted on that extra time. None of us really got to say goodbye.

From his diagnosis to his death, my dad lingered in his deteriorating mental state for nearly five years. I tried to tell him goodbye, and that I loved him, so many times but I don’t think he understood anymore. And he couldn’t ever really tell me goodbye. I wish he could have told me something, but I can’t tell you exactly what. Something only he could say.

My mother-in-law was recuperating beautifully from a double mastectomy. She had been to the doctor two days before she died, and he told her that her heart was strong. Then she had a massive heart attack. Say goodbye? Her death felt like a bolt of lightning.

The two bikers who were killed didn’t get to say goodbye. My friend Monika’s father-in-law didn’t get to, either.

But I keep going back to what she wrote—that he passed where he was most at home.

And the bikers, who died instantly, died doing what they loved.

I don’t know that I believe in fate—that the length a life is already decided. But if we have to die (and who doesn’t), I think there is some tiny solace in leaving that way. In a place you love, or doing something you are passionate about. I would far rather die say, hiking Timp than in a hospital bed.

But no one gets to choose.

So I am lingering in these thoughts of death, which sounds fairly gloomy, but they are making me think in ways I haven’t before. Not exactly. This morning, for whatever reason, I thought what if today was my last day on earth? One of my first responses to this thought was is there writing on the other side? Because I can’t imagine experiencing anything without also wanting to write about it.

So I paid attention today. I thought of all the time I squander—on Facebook or on the Internet. Or just by not really paying attention. I tried not to waste a second, and to be present. And I watched for moments, those numinous moments that really: we have every day. If we watch. If today was my last day and I didn’t get to say goodbye, I would still be grateful for these moments:

• Watching Kaleb walk into school this morning. He doesn’t love school, but he loves having friends, and someone waved to him and someone else said hello, and his whole body was beaming with happiness—but he still stopped and waved goodbye to me.
• The few minutes I had before work, when ostensibly I was reading but really I was watching the way the light was spreading above Cascade mountain.
• Just before I walked over to unlocked the library doors, I noticed that sunlight was pouring in through the windows, lighting up the very-brand-new buds on the magnolia tree and then washing across might desk. I know it’s not prestigious, and the world values it very little, and I don’t make very much money, but I love my job.
• Laughing with Kendell and Jake about a text I sent that ended up sounding like one of those autocorrect fails.
• I went running this afternoon. And since the lone runner is a one-person parade, and because it was grey outside, and a little windy, I decided to wear my cheeriest running pants. The very-bright neon pink ones. I ran three miles without walking, and I hit the busiest light at exactly the right second so I didn’t have to wait to cross, and, you know: I didn’t fall. (That always feels like a success lately!) I still feel like I am running through sludge (heavy and slow, and like my legs are coated in a dense slurry of something), but my pink pants made me happy anyway.
• making jokes with my friend Julie at work, about the things people leave behind. Why someone’s discarded chapstick or lotion tube feels slightly icky is sort of inexplicable, but the truth is that we touched those items very gingerly. And then washed our hands afterwards.
• just now, a late night talk with Nathan, about nothing really specific—his night out with friends, and his recent student council portfolio (he has to wait until April 4 to find out if he made it), and who at school is really bugging him. He forgot to bring me a cookie but it’s OK.

The thing about the numinous moments is that often they are just normal moments. But they are what life is made of. If it was my last day on earth, I think when I got to the other side I would want to write a letter—to my mom, and to Haley, and to Becky, and to Chris To the people I thought about but didn’t see or talk to today. I’d want to tell them that I love them, because you never get the chance to say that enough.

I don’t think it will be today—my last day on earth. But one day, it will. Against all the odds, I hope I get to say goodbye. I hope I don’t die in a hospital. I hope I will fulfill more of my dreams and goals before that day. I hope I see my kids grow up, and succeed, and start their own families. I hope for a reunion of sorts, one day. I hope I live more, both in the small moments and the large gestures.

But more than anything, I hope that when it is my day, however it comes, the people I leave behind will know I loved them. So, just in case you wondered or you weren't sure or I never told you enough: I love you. Don't forget it.

Last summer when we went to Idaho for Beth’s grave service, on our way home we decided to stop at Bear World. This is a space with a whole bunch of, you guessed it: bears. There is a big meadow with a little road, and you can drive your car through, past the bears (who are not caged, but wander through the meadow). We also decided to go on the bear feeding tour, which allows you to throw bread to the bears from an open-topped truck.

Bears are not my favorite animal—that would be the cheetah, or almost anything in the large cat family. But they are high on my list of affections. In fact, I harbor a secret desire to come across a bear while we’re hiking. From a distance, of course, but I long to see a bear in the wild, in its natural place in the world. So the Bear World experience was a little strange to me. On the one hand: bears! Brushing against our van! Eating food that I’d thrown to them! On the other hand: we were throwing them white Wonder bread. The wildness was gone; these were bears accustomed to human interactions, their body clocks set to the passing feeding tours.

So when my niece Lyndsay called me to see if Kendell and I wanted to go tag bears, my only hesitation was a prior commitment. Once my friend Wendy and her husband helped me with that, I was ready: I was going to see a real bear.

Lyndsay’s husband works for the DNR, and part of his responsibilities is managing the bear population. (You can read more about it HERE.) Every spring, they follow the pings from the bears’ tracking collars to their dens. They do different things to check the mother bear’s health, and they also check for cubs. They take several students with them (“several,” this time, being an understatement; there were about 35 people) so they can see what animal biologists do.

I was beyond honored to be included.

We started in Price, Utah, and drove to a spot in a canyon near Nine Mile Road. Then we just started hiking, following the biologists tracking the radio signal.

(a shot of most of the group making its way up the cliffs.)

This wasn’t a hike like we usually take—meaning, no trail. It was mostly a scramble. At one point, we had to get on top of an overhanging cliff, and this was the solution:

(Side note: I think I was the only person in exercise clothes there. Everyone else hiked in jeans and there I was, in my favorite running pants.)

Once we got to the den, we stood quite a way back from the entrance, while the biologists tranquilized the mother bear. It was chilly once we stopped moving, but it was lovely to stand in the mountains and talk to Kendell and Lyndsay.

After the bear was asleep, they removed the cubs. There were two, a grey and a black. They were about a month old. I tried not to be pushy because I knew there were a lot of people wanting to hold them—but I was, I confess, not the last person to hold one. (I also wasn’t the first, though!)

You know when you have an experience that you’ve wanted for a long time, how it almost feels like it’s not you...like you’re watching it happen and not really doing it?

That’s how I felt when one of the students handed me a bear cub.

To make myself feel it instead of observe, I said out loud: “I am holding a bear cub!” And I was! I turned to look out over the valley below the den

and just held the squirming, shivering, muscular creature. I was surprised by how long and sharp its claws were,
and at the fat pads on the bottom of its feet. But I was hoping its fur would be soft, and it was. It mewled and squealed and shivered, so I tried to snuggle it close. Is it weird to say: it was a baby, and nature takes over and you just do what you do with any baby, try to keep it warm, bounce a little bit.

I held a bear cub!

Lyndsay and Kendell were standing with me, so they held it next.

Then, while we waited to hold the other one, I decided that I wasn’t going to regret anything: despite my claustrophobia, I was going to go inside the bear’s den. There was a small, triangular opening between two boulders. Once it was my turn (several of the students also wanted to see inside the den), I laid down right on my belly and army crawled into the den. It wasn’t a long crawl, really; my torso was in the cave while my legs were outside of it. It wasn’t as dark as I had expected, as there were a bunch of rocks piled at the back, with a small opening at the top like a window. It was small, but not excrutiatingly. So I only had that paralyzing rush of a small-place fear for a second.

It smelled like wild animals, but it didn’t have an overwhelmingly powerful stink. And it was mostly quiet—or I just ignored all the human sounds, and laid with my chin on my forearms, watching the sleeping bear.

I touched her, too. I thought her fur would be more coarse than the babies’, but really it was softer and fluffier. I wished her happy mothering, which is probably silly, but still: it’s tough to be a bear. Two babies to watch and feed and keep safe on a mountain.

After the den, I wanted to hold the other cub, and finally got a chance to.
(This is my favorite photo of me and the cubs, because look at that cub! He is totally smizing.)

Some of the students had started back to their cars, so it wasn’t as crowded, and I felt like I could hold him a little bit longer. This one was squirmier than his sister.

(although, this one is pretty awesome, too. Baby yawns are cute no matter the creature!)

He protested much more, and shivered less, and hardly snuggled at all. Still, I confess to crooning. I told him that if he ever came across me while I was hiking, he was not to eat me because we’re friends now.

I marveled.

I’m convinced that we, in our contemporary age, have no idea what the world is supposed to be like. We’ve stripped it of everything wild. When you hike through the mountains, sometimes you’ll spot a deer, or a mountain goat, an elk or a rare moose. I don’t think it is supposed to be like that. I think there used to be more wildlife in the world. There should be bears in the wild. And cougars. (This recent story of a cougar being stoned to death makes me furious.) There should be more wild places, and less human interaction.

The irony of which doesn’t escape me, as I had my human interaction with three bears.

Eventually, the mama bear started stirring, and as she’d probably be fairly mad once she woke, it was time to put the babies back. As I was shifting the cub I was holding for one last picture, someone bumped me and I reflexively pulled him close so I wouldn’t drop him. And he did not like that. He swiped right at me, in fact, with those sharp claws. A fast swipe that would've cut my skin open if he'd reached me. That moment was when I really felt it, that I was holding a bear. Tiny still, he was strong and fierce, a force you couldn’t do much against if he were fully grown and angry. He was alive, and real. No one was going to toss him bread from a truck. He, and his sister and mother, will figure out their life on their own.

This was a day I hope I will never, ever forget. It left me more humble about my place in the world, and more awed, and even more grateful to be alive, to be able to move around in our beautiful world.

This morning Kaleb got into my bed for a quick snuggle before getting ready. "Mom," he murmured, still sleepy. "How about tonight we have a big party with all of our cousins and aunts and uncles, and Grandma Sue, too. With green food, for St. Patrick's Day. We've never done that before, why not?"

I tried not to sniffle at all while we talked—this losing-grandparents thing has been so hard for Kaleb, who loves nothing more than a big family party with all of the cousins, which is still fun but not as good as when all of the grandparents could also come. So I explained to him that we haven't ever really celebrated St. Patrick's Day because we DO have some Irish in our blood, but not a lot.

(Kaleb is also fascinated by genealogy, especially Kendell's Scandinavian streak. He is fully convinced he's descended from a long line of Viking warriors and that this makes him stronger than his friends.)

Our conversation has left me thinking all morning about my Irish heritage. I confess to wishing that I were more Irish than I am. It is a country that fascinates me, its history and stories and legends, its landscape. I love novels send in Ireland in any time period. I spent an entire semester in college creating a mythology project about Irish Celtic mythology. And Ireland is, literally, on the top of my list of places I want to travel to. (My dream trip to Ireland would include both cities and rural counties, hiking and history and sightseeing and a few bike tours.)

My dad's mom was a McCurdy, and if I trace her line back in time (there are quite a few Jacobs in that mix!), I come to a John McCurdy, who was born on Rathlin Island in Ireland but died in Georgia, so some time after 1724, my ancestors immigrated to America. I knew this long McCurdy line; for generations they lived on Rathlin Island, but since I've last looked at the genealogy, more information has been added. Sometime in the late 1500s, a family named MacKirby moved from Scotland to Ireland and changed its name to McCurdy. (Oh how I wish I knew all of these stories!)

I confess that learning this disappointed me a little bit. I liked the idea of that line going all the way back, living on Rathlin Island. (Which is, of course, one of the places I want to visit during my as-yet-only-imagined trip to Ireland.) Scotland is also fascinating, but for different reasons. I wanted a little bit of a pure Irish streak.

So I kept digging, this time on the female line, and I discovered that my fifth-great grandfather, Patrick (the father of the John who immigrated to America) was married to a woman named Mary, who was Irish. I followed her line back and discovered that it is the Irish streak I was looking for. All the way back until the names run out, that line (which even includes a Lady) is in Antium, Ireland. All the way back to Grissel, who was born in 1582.

I can't fully explain how attached I am to this little bit of Irish I have in my blood. But it has been pervasive; my entire life, I've had that affection. It makes me sad to know that the stories have died away—my grandma never told me anything about her parents or grandparents, so maybe the stories were dead even during her time. I wish I knew more. But on a whim, I think I'll make something Irish-esque for dinner, even if it is only soda bread. Because Kaleb's right: I might be only a small portion of Irish, but why not celebrate it?

Do you have an Irish ancestors?

This is my most recent scrapbook layout, which I made as a challenge to myself to use some of the long, narrow strips I've been keeping in a glass vase on my scrapbooking desk. (It still has a lot of strips left!) I think it's a pretty good example of my current scrapbooking style (a long-ish title, pictures lined up on an edge, some quick embellishment and a story) :

(I also used that bottom photo on the layout in this WCS post. It's one of my favorite recent photos!)

I started scrapbooking in February of 1996, which means I’ve now been involved in this hobby for 18 years. My scrapbooking is an adult! I feel like my relationship to it is starting to change, in ways I can’t really explain yet, but it is something I’ve been thinking a lot about.

Last night I decided I need to share my very first layout on my blog. I remember it clearly: I picked up the pictures of Haley from photo printing shop on my way to the scrapbooking crop where I was meeting my friend Chris, who was going to teach me how to scrapbook. The photos are of Haley playing with my friend Stevie’s new puppy; I used dark purple cardstock and some dog stickers, and four different photo mats, one cut with pinking sheers and one cut with a scallop. I decided to spring for some black letter stickers, even though it felt like a lot, spending $2.50 on some letter stickers. But they told me I needed a title, and of course I didn’t want to just write “Puppy Love.” I wanted it to look good.

When I finished sticking everything down, I was like, “wait! Can I write something on here too?” and Chris was like, “yes, you can! That’s called journaling.” Except I didn’t have a lot of space, and my handwriting was awful then too, so I asked the girl at the crop if I could write this journaling on my computer and then print it out. “Wow!” she said. “That’s a great idea! I never thought of doing it that way!”

(This was, remember, the Dawn of Scrapbooking.)

When I finished that layout the next day (while Haley was napping...she wasn’t even 1 yet!), I looked at it and thought, I love doing this. I’m going to do some more today. I was hooked right from the start.

I realized, though, last night looking at Haley’s baby book, that I can’t show you my first layout, because I threw it away during the great Redo Haley’s Baby Book project of, oh...1997 I would guess. Because after I’d done a few layouts, I started realizing what I liked and what I didn’t, and it all seemed too cutesy to me, so I trashed almost everything and started again.

(Looking at the redo now? Gah. It’s still way too cutesy.)

I wish I had kept that first layout, though, because aside from the triple and quadruple photo mats and the decorative scissors, it was fairly close to my scrapbooking style: some photos I love, a clever-ish title (although I hope my titles have gotten less predictable), a few embellishments, and a story. I still have an abiding affection for alphabet stickers. I’ve experimented with a lot of supplies, techniques, and approaches since that first crop, but if I am honest I know that my style isn’t heavy on embellishments or other stuff. My strength is not in the design aspect—I feel, in fact, like design, like using lots of stuff, is a foreign language, something I can learn and develop but which I will never be fluent in. I’m comfortable with that, though, because I rely on what is my strength: journaling.

In fact, as I flipped through layouts last night I realized that I can’t think of a single layout I’ve made that doesn’t have journaling. It’s the thing I spend the most time on and the part of the process I enjoy the most. Truth be told, if there wasn’t such a thing as scrapbook journaling, I’d either have had to invent it or stop scrapbooking.

It’s true: the reason I scrapbook is so I can write our family stories and then pair them up with the pictures.

Everything else is fun, too. I love using my stuff. But if everything but plain paper disappeared tomorrow, I’d be OK because the essence for me is the story. The story itself, and the writing of the story, which is a process I always enjoy.

But I know not everyone loves it.

So! To celebrate this sort-of-an-anniversary thing I’ve got going on (I don’t know the exact date I made that first layout), I thought I’d share a secret. One way to enjoy writing journaling is to change up the way you approach the story. If you always write “We had so much fun at the beach,” with some associated details of what happened or what you did, the writing process will start to feel a little bit like drudgery. It’s when you look at it from a different angle that you enjoy the process.

Here’s a list of ten different ways you could write about that day at the beach, with examples I took from my very own scrapbook layouts:

1. Never, ever write “We had so much fun at...”
It’s a way to get started, of course. But it’s a pretty lackluster sentence. Start with a specific fun thing that you did, and don’t even tell us it was fun. Describe the fun instead. (You know this one, as it is the oldest writing advice in the world: show, don't tell.)

At Aliso Beach, a little girl came up to Kaleb, who was digging an enormous trench in the sand, and said “Do you want to use my board?” She had this kid-sized board, and of course Kaleb was happy to try it out. He wasn’t very good at it (exactly what you’d expect from a kid from Utah!) but he never stopped laughing, even when the waves dunked him under. He’d pop back up with a smile on his face every time.

2. Pick just one part of the story to focus on.
It’s easy to get bogged down sometimes with a very long story. Or trying to tell all the little things that are built into one experience. Over those 18 years of scrapbooking I’ve learned that you generally have more than one chance to tell your stories. Pick one thing—the best part, the most mysterious or surprising or exciting; maybe something you didn’t expect to happen. Write just that one thing. The cool thing about this is how one powerful story will help you remember many other things from an experience, even if you don’t journal all of the stories.

It was a pebbly, rocky beach, so, with three boys, of course part of the afternoon’s activities was throwing rocks into the ocean. Kaleb was standing behind and to the side of Jake, happily throwing his little pile of rocks, one at a time, as far as he could. I’m not sure any of them actually reached the water, but one made contact with the back of Jake’s head. There Jake was, happily throwing rocks, when BAM, stone to the head! He threw his arms up in complete shock, and if we could hear his body language it would’ve been yelling “What the heck was that?” He had a big goose egg and a bloody cut, so we went to the lifeguard’s stand to get an opinion on stitches. (He didn’t need them.) Kaleb felt so bad, but after the initial shock, Jake thought it was just pretty cool that he got to climb up to the lifeguard’s chair.

3. Start in the middle of the story. Or the end.
Maybe you can make your way back to the beginning. Or not. Sometimes the beginning details of a story are extraneous, especially when the pictures give enough visual details to tell part of the story.

While we were moving all of our soaked possessions (except the bag with the electronics in it, which I managed to save), we crossed back over the little stream that flowed into the ocean. Except now it was a much larger stream, and the surf bigger, and Kaleb just as small, so yeah: he lost his brand new flip flops and it was that moment—not when the enormous rogue wave hit me where I was holding down the fort, not when I realized every single towel was dripping wet, not when I saw my waterlogged book—when I totally lost in. Warning: crazy woman yelling fruitlessly at the ocean, right over there by the inlet!

4. Write a list of verbs—what was done during the experience?
You can just write the verbs. Or write a sort of summary sentence at the end of the list.

Run. Find. Skip. Dig. Eat. Surf. Wander. Explore. Squish. Laugh. Shiver. Sunbathe. Throw. Jump. Tumble. Race. Laugh. Experience that dreamy happiness that you find only at the beach.

5. Write a list of things you said.
Not a conversation—just the words that came out of one person’s mouth. (It could be you, or anyone else, really.) Quite a bit of story can be inferred, just from what is said.

“Yes, you need sun screen.” “Be careful!” “Don't drown!” “Hold your brother's hand!” “Yes, you need sun screen.” “Oh, look, a starfish.” “I love that seashell you found.” “Yes, you need sun screen.” “We have lots of snacks, come get some.” “That’s because you're not supposed to drink the ocean.” And, of course, “Yes! YOU NEED SUN SCREEN!”

6. Write a conversation.
This is similar to #5, because of words being spoken. But two or more people talking? That is the essence of storytelling!

     “I would do this every day, if I lived here,” she said while we walked back up to our hotel after running together on the beach.
     “I probably would, too. If I lived here,” I said. Then I looked around, at the enormous beachfront homes we were walking past, and then backward to the ocean. “Except, I don’t think I’d want to live here.”
     “You’re crazy!” she said. “When I grow up I want to live by the beach. Who wouldn’t want to live here?”
     “I think that living by the beach isn’t the same as taking a vacation by the beach,” I said, huffing a bit as we hit the steep uphill part of our walk. “You’d just be living your normal life, with school and work and laundry, except by the ocean.” 
     “But you’d be by the ocean!”
     “That’s true. But I’d miss the mountains.”
     “Not me,” she said. She declared, really. “I’d trade the mountains for the beach any day of the week.”
     “OK, well, when you live by the beach can I come visit you?” I asked. And then she started talking about the future she’s imagining, and all I could do was imagine it with her, and hope that where ever she lives, I’ll be there.

7. Write what it feels like.
We experience the world through our senses. Try remembering back to the sensations of the experience.

The hot sand on the surface, and the way that when you dig your toes in, it grows cool and damp. That first plunge, which is so cold it takes your breath away. The waves slapping at your ankles and the salt drying on your knees. Roughness: sand, cliffs, the nap of a towel on sunburned skin. The way your scalp soaks up heat, so your hair is hot. Sweating in the sun until the second you can’t bear one more drop of sun and you race into the cold sea. The waves lifting you up and down and how it makes your belly drop, nearly like a carnival ride. The solid pavement of the parking lot under your feet and the way you drag along, not ever wanting to leave.

8. Write about what you learned.
Sometimes what we remember most about an experience isn’t what happened but what we learn from what happened. (I find this to be true at any event that involves extended family!)

I love the beach—who doesn’t? But I watched the kids play in the waves and have those moments of panic thinking they’d vanish in the ocean. Or let them wander but then start to fear they wouldn’t wander back. In the water I thought of sharks and riptides, and then a lifeguard walked by and told us to stay close to shore, because of sharks and riptides. I realized today that while I love the beach, I don’t love the beach. The ocean is just so big, and powerful, and it could grab up everything I love in a second, without ever looking back. I don’t like that I have that deep, I-love-the-beach-cancelling fear. But it’s there, gnawing at me whenever we’re on the coast.

9. Write about the people involved in the experience.
Tell a story about your great uncle Harold who finally came to Thanksgiving this year. Or what you admire about your brother, or how you wish your relationship was different with your sister. How the friends at the birthday party became friends. The efforts your mom puts in to make your traditional 4th of July celebration perfect.

At Bolsa Chica, we hung out with the Kudlaceks. Haley hadn’t seen Jessica for a few years, so it was awkward at first—a couple of teenage girls trying to be cool. But eventually they remembered they were friends, and I thought about the last time we were here, how Haley watched how Jessica did things and how, when we got home, she seemed so much older. And there they were again, lying on towels next to each other, talking about how they wished they had better cell phones and how their moms annoyed them. Even in just a few days of interaction, friends influence so much!

10. Write a list of things.
This is one of my favorite ways to journal. Think about all of the things involved with the experience, and then just list them. It’s like...you know how, if you poured out your purse right now, all the objects inside would tell a part of the story of who you are right now? That’s true of any experience and its objects. Its stuff.

Sun screen, both in stick (for faces), lotion (for everywhere else), and chapstick (for lips). Floppy hats. Seven beach towels. Nation by Terry Pratchett. A Costco-sized bag of peppermint patties, which are the best chocolate to eat on the beach. Four bags of chips. A cooler with icy sodas and juices, a bag of washed grapes, and a bowl of watermelon chunks. Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay. Four MP3 players, three cell phones, one camera, the GPS. My favorite orange bandana (which was swept off Jake’s head by a wave and lost forever). A notebook and a pen. A first aid kit. Five PB&J’s, one almond butter & nutella. A shovel, a bucket, and some plastic cups for sand castle making. Two sweatshirts. Six pair of flip flops. Four happy kids!