Life's a Beach

I haven't really blogged in awhile. I've found that even during summer vacation I have a pretty busy lifestyle. Early in our summer we took a trip to Massachusetts to visit family as well as have a last family get together before my sister moved abroad. The first week was spent in Cape Cod in an old but renovated beach house about a mile from the most wonderful beach. Now, normally I am not a beach person, but there I could have (and we practically did) gone every day. It was so peaceful and so relaxing. The water was calm so there was no fear of the little ones getting tumbled by a wave or swept out to sea. I was perfectly content to wade through the water to assist Matthew in finding hermit crabs or Natalie in her search for periwinkles. Even Ryan spent hours on the sand building huge sand fortresses with the kids.

Now if you know us, you probably didn't even think we liked the beach. We certainly don't go very often and if we do, we don't last very long. Here the beaches are hot and crowded. The sand feels gritty and the waves are too big for little ones. Last summer we went to Silver Strand Beach and we probably didn't even last two hours. Every time the kids went near the water my heartrate picked up. It was just not the relaxing beach experience that I enjoy.

This summer was completely different. It was floods of memories and nostalgia of the beach trips I had as a child. It made me (and even Ryan) long for a summer cottage of our own. How wonderful it would be if every summer could be spent on Cape Cod? I would love to give my children the experiences I had growing up. Until then, I'll hang on to the wonderful memories we made this summer and continue to play the lottery.