salt and sand

We beached over the weekend. Right in the middle of two school weeks. AND we kept the boys out of school on Monday, just so they could have an extra day of waking up to sunrise glory on the bay. I felt like the best and worst parent all in the same breath. I wonder if I’ve been brainwashed by the school into thinking they own my kids eight hours a day, Monday-Friday. Thank goodness I got away just in time to remember the “perfect attendance” certificate is less important than they’d like you to believe.

I had some reservations about staying on the bay… which vanished as soon as we pulled up and I saw those adirondack chairs perched above the water. It’s completely possible to forge a friendship with a chair in just three days. We should know. Those chairs were the perfect spot to stay up way too late, watching the salt water taste the sand and talking about our lives before we knew each other. Not the newest subject because Caleb and I were blessed to be childhood sweethearts and therefore most of the stories and secrets have been told. That doesn’t stop us from reminiscing and trying to come up with new “did I ever tell you about…”

Sometimes you know a person so well, you know the story before they start to tell it. And you listen anyway, just to be near them for a little longer.

Sunrise on the bay? It makes up for the brackish water and the brown sand. Also, the dolphins swim in at night and back out the next morning. And the hermit crabs present themselves for being caught at 6:00 AM, in case you are like us and think catching crabs in a bucket is worth getting up at daybreak.

We did make it to the “beach beach” as the boys call it. “It” being the Gulf, miles of sugar sand and neon water included at no extra charge. I thought this would be the highlight of the trip, but Jackson completely surprised me by saying he liked walking the bay at sunrise best of all.

The last few pictures are from our early morning hermit crab hunt on Monday. The sun rose behind the clouds and everything was tinted in pink. The kids held hands and told me precious tidbits that can only come from happy hearts. Jonathan said Caleb and I were “the perfect adults to marry together”, in other words ‘meant for each other’. A little affirmation goes a long way when you are working so hard to model the best possible view of love. Some things are worth cashing in our “perfect attendance” for.