Beach 2008

I learned something this year during our beach trip. One week at the beach is not enough. You spend the entire first week just learning how to live the vacation lifestyle, and by the time the week is over you're just starting to get in the groove of sitting on the beach all day, reading, and eating whatever you want. It doesn't make any sense to go home at that point. Two weeks is infinitely better. Obviously, three would be even better than two. But I'll take two. Two is great.

The trip down was much better than I expected. Sawyer watched his Dora the Explorer DVDs almost the whole way. And it's a 7 hour drive. On the way home I stopped and bought another DVD player (you'll find out why in a minute) and he did pretty much the same thing, even though the drive home took 9 hours because we hit traffic. I've often wondered at home how long he would keep watching TV were I to let him just sit there and keep watching, and now I have my answer: pretty much forever! I'm not complaining though since it made driving without another adult a whole lot easier than it could have been. Especially since the little bugger seems to be immune to the sleepy side effects of Dramamine.

This year our first week was with my mom's family, the annual Stell reunion, full of all the usual subtle and not-so-subtle tensions that a family reunion always brings, and a lot of watching The Office in the evening. My cousins are spread out over Virginia and the US so the beach week is the one time during the year when we all get together and catch up.

The second week we spent in a sound side house with my parents and siblings who could make it (Rob had to go back to work in Miami and Erin was in the midst of moving to New Zealand.) It was nice to all be in one house (the Stell reunion is so big now that we need two) and a bit less chaotic since there were fewer of us. The weather got much better that week too, cooler and less humid. We spent almost every day out on the beach or by the pool. There were a few minor problems - like getting multiple mosquito bites every time we left the house (they were worse this year than they've been in a long time - this T-shirt would have been very appropriate) and having our cars broken into during the first week (mysteriously, my cheapo portable DVD player got stolen, but the punk left my $400+ GPS system right where it was on the windshield.) And it really sucked that Eric was only able to come for a short weekend; he drove down Friday night and left Sunday morning. Next year I hope he'll be able to take more time off. I'm already counting the days.

Another benefit of staying two weeks was that it gave Sawyer time to learn to love the ocean. The first week he hated going to the beach. I literally had to drag him kicking and screaming across the dunes. He hated the way the sand would shift under his feet ("It's slippery! It's slippery!") and was scared of the waves. But by week two, he loved it and it was all I could do to get him to come out of the water and go home for lunch. I had to watch him like a hawk because he would try to get into the water by himself. His favorite was going into the ocean with his Grandad - they'd jump up over the waves and Sawyer would yell "Arriba!" and "Abajo!" and "Don't drink the agua!" (Thank you again, Dora!)



One of the highlights of our yearly beach vacation is our trip to Ocracoke. It's on a small island south of Cape Hatteras and is a quirky little village with lots of restaurants, shops, local music and aging hippies. This year we went twice. We had a great time eating at the Jolly Roger (hush puppies=deliciousness!), browsing at the Hemp Shop, touring the lighthouse, and splashing in puddles on the day it rained.