I wanna go to the beach

Every day my daughter says, “Mommy, I want to go to the beach.”  EVERY DAY!  Snow, sleet, rain, shine, she tells us that she wants to go to the beach.  My reply, “So do I baby, very much.”  I love that my daughter is infatuated with the beach.  It’s actually a result of my own obsession with the beach.

My love affair with the beach began, not when I was little, but when I was 20.  I had never really been to the beach before that.  I don’t think that you can count 4 hours at Cocoa Beach with the high school band.  I am sure that there are people that LOVE Cocoa Beach, but really, it’s not a beach goer’s beach.  Jon (this is my husband, I will get around to introducing him) and I went to Myrtle Beach on our first REAL, WEEK LONG vacation.  He had been to the beach before…Daytona for Spring Break (good lord, I do NOT want to think about that), and Cocoa Beach as well.  We drove.  From Ohio.  To Myrtle Beach.  Straight through.  As soon as we got to our hotel and checked in, we ran (I mean literally ran) to the beach to check it out.  This was as a HUGE thunderstorm was rolling in.  Thunder, lightning, rain, all of it.  NOT SMART.  You really don’t want to be on the beach (unprotected, no shelter) during a thunderstorm, but when you can’t contain your excitement….you do stupid things.  This started our passionate love affair with the beach and everything beachy.  Subsequently, all of our vacations after this revolved around the beach.   

We even got married in Jamaica.

Jamaica 2003

Now, I know most people take pictures of their trips, but I LOVE pictures.  I LOVE THEM!  We have tons of pictures around our house.  Of us, of vacations, and now of the kids.  My daughter has grown up seeing all of these lovely pictures of all the beaches we have been to.   

 Mexico 2006

We even took her to the beach before her first birthday.  Now I’m sure that she doesn’t really remember the trip, but I believe that she has learned through osmosis.  If I can get my kids to be beach people like Jon and I are, why not?  It’s fun.  It’s relaxing.  It’s beautiful.  

Unfortunately we have not gotten back to the beach since May of 2008.  I keep finding myself pregnant and unable to travel (yes, we do know what causes this).  We WILL be going on a beach vacation in 2011.  I might even try to squeeze one out this December, but I don’t know if that’s actually going to happen, or if I’m just wishing.  I want to share this with my little man, and the new little man.  I think that they will love it as much as their sissy does. 

So yes, we tell Munchkin about the beach.  We look at the pictures and tell her where we were when they were taken.  We promise to take her to all of the places that she sees in the pictures.  She gets so excited, and so do I.   I love the beach.  I wished we lived at the beach.  I want to give them the love of traveling, and foreign places and new food.  (Mmmm, food)  I wonder when Little Man will tell us he wants to go to the beach?  I hope it will be soon. 

 Isle of Palms 2008

I want to go to the beach too!