I kind of hate sand (most of the time). And I hate getting sunburnt. And our beach umbrellas often blow away.
However, I love watching Eliot play along the shore, swim RIGHT into the water, and open his mouth for salt water.
And I love seeing Chris get so excited to feel the salt on his skin and dive into the waves.
This weekend, we spent a few days in Chesapeake. We met Kimmy, Lara, and Kimmy's brother at Sandbridge for some beach time. Lara followed Eliot up and down the shore as he chased a seagull. Then we took him in the water as Chris let my surfboard finally find the ocean again. Eliot wasn't scared at all this time. We swam way out with him and Lara (who is much taller than me) would hold him up over the waves. With me, he got a few facefulls of waves, but he didn't mind.
The next day, Kimmy, Chris, Eliot, and I met Lesley, Aspen, Melissa, Bart, Ryan, Ben, and alllll the kids at the oceanfront. What a big group! We all had fun splashing in the water, giving one another's kids food, and wrangling up the little ones from time to time when they'd make a mad dash for the water or run down the beach alone. The water felt amazing--and I learned the next day that it was 80 degrees!
On our last full day in Chesapeake, we kind of splurged. I got my surfboard from a used shop for my 14th birthday. It was great for a first board for a teenaged girl, but it doesn't work well for Chris and the small waves of Virginia Beach. He has been telling me since we met that he wanted a longboard--and a wooden one would be the stuff of dreams. Since he made such an effort on my little board and I could tell that he really, really wanted to surf, I looked on Craig's List. Surely, some people would be selling their boards at the end of the season. I found a couple, but we decided to check out the used shop first. Of course, there were no used longboards to be found, but then I saw the most beautiful board I have seen in my life--and it was just $50 more than the board off of Craig's List. I told Chris to get it. He is always hesitant to spend money (which is a good thing), but we had the cash. He said it'd be his birthday and Christmas presents, so he snagged it. Plus, to me, it's like you get one surfboard and you take care of it. This is the one he will hopefully have for a long, long time and will let Eliot use when he grows older. Not to mention that the thing is so long (nine feet) that he and Eliot can ride it together in a couple of years.
We weren't planning to go back to the beach that day since we had work to do, but how could we not? We loaded Eliot up yet again and Chris took to the waves. He did great and got up twice despite the waves being choppy and small. Plus, we didn't stay but an hour or so. I'm very proud of Chris's efforts and I know he will love that board for many, many years. Maybe I'll get a new board some day.... It'll probably be a while because it will be many years down the road before we can surf together. Someday, just maybe someday, perhaps we'll both be surfing on longboards, each with a little Robinson holding on tight up front.
Chris might try to get in one last beach trip early tomorrow morning before we head back to the mountains. We have had much more beach time this year than any other year before. Yet, somehow, it never feels like enough.
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