Santa Rosa Beach

J.P., the proud owner a new sand dollar.

Joe on the beach.

Jed and the boys at Blue Mountain Creamery.

Santa Rosa Beach 2016

Our annual week's vacation in Santa Rosa ends tonight and we'll be on the road home to Nashville tomorrow morning.  As always, there were many highlights (and a lowlight or two) from our stay in Old Florida Village, our home away from home.

• Rain, rain and more rain.  We had thunderstorms Saturday and Sunday nights, then real rain on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  The lifeguards "double red-flagged the beach" on those days, which meant no one could get in the ocean.  Finally, about noon today, the second red flag came down and the boys were able to spend an hour in the ocean, playing and looking for shells.  Bummer and a definite lowlight.
• Lots and lots of board games, mostly "Thomas Pop Up" (aka "Trouble), Sorry and Connect Four.  As usual, Joe dominated the "Thomas Pop Up" games.  He laughs when I call him "the Assassin," even though he doesn't know what it means, as he lands on our men and sends them back to their "home."  It kind of pisses J.P. off that Joe wins most of the time.  Of course, it's quite funny that on the rare occasion when Joe loses, he cries, screams and raises completely hell about it.   
• Lots and lots of the Summer Olympics.  The boys, as well as Jude and I, have loved watching the Summer Olympics this week.  Favorite events, in no particular order - Fencing (a big hit), table tennis, volleyball (traditional and beach), swimming and diving and many more.  Michael Phelps is a hero to the boys, for sure.  What a performance by him!
• I haven't  had the best week of running, which is a bit depressing for me.  Normally, I kill it down here, running every day.  On Sunday morning, I left the house excited about on the Longleaf Trail a half mile or so away from Old Florida Village.  When I arrived at the trailhead, I ignored a sign saying the trail was closed.  What I saw on the trail (and the apparent reason of the closure) devastated me, as there were pine trees torn down and underbrush plowed up everywhere.  It looked like someone is developing property on the trail, which would be a tragedy.  Another lowlight.
• Pool time was a definite highlight, as always.  The boys love playing in the pool.  Just as J.P. was at 4 years of age, Joe is a bit dangerous, because he doesn't really comprehend the danger of getting in water over his head.  Jude and I had to watch him carefully at every minute and still, at one point on Thursday when I was with the boys in the pool, he fell off a step into water over his head.  It's scary and I'll be glad when he become a stronger swimmer.  
• Thursday at the pool, J.P., Joe and I swam in the rain and had the pool to ourselves.  J.P. pretended to be in a "Dude Perfect" video, running and jumping into the pool and trying to catch a ball I threw to him.  Joe laughed as he watched.  Later, Jude arrived, it started raining harder, and J.P. and jumped back into the pool.  We took turns jumping off the side, doing "cannonballs" and "can openers" in an effort to make the biggest splash.  I managed to slightly bruise my tailbone the bottom of the pool on one of my more boisterous attempts.  One of the highlights of the week on the fun scale.
• Friday, J.P. and I invented a game at the beach.  We started out chest to chest, tossing a ball back and forth.  Each time one of us caught the ball, he took a step back.  We tried to see how far we could get apart from each other, tossing the ball.  When one of us dropped it, we had to start over.  Each time we started a new round, we did a "high five" routine - right hand high five  (slap the thighs), left hand high five (slap the thighs), both hand high five/low five (slap the thighs).  Silly?  Yes.  But good spontaneous and competitive fun, as all of our on the spot made up games tend to be.  
• Friday evening, J.P. and I walked down to the swimming pool.  Joe, still tired from his afternoon nap, didn't want to swim for some reason.  The rain was gone and it wasn't quite as overcast as it had been.  The temperature had dropped into the high 70's and, really, it was a beautiful earl evening.  We ended up swimming and playing, throwing the Waboba back and forth across the pool, which we had to ourselves.  J.P. repeatedly jumped into the pool in the deep (5') end and tried to catch the Waboba as he hit the water.  We just hung out together in the pool for close to two hours.  I don't get that kind of relaxed time with him, so it was special, just me and him.  I didn't want the idyllic interlude to end.  
• Coffee at Ama Vida in Seaside, FL.  It's the only real coffee shop I've been able to locate down here, at least since Grayton Beach Coffeehouse went out of business a year or two ago.  Ama Vida is a member of the same coffee cooperative as Bongo Java and, strangely enough, one of their former baristas - Rachel - moved to Nashville and works at Bongo Java now.  Anyway, Ama Vida has a nice atmosphere a really good coffee.  It's a small place, tucked away on the beach side of 30A in the middle of Seaside.
• An afternoon half carafe of wine at Wine World, watching the Olympics.  Somehow, I missed having beers at the Great Southern in Seaside, though.  Since this was the first trip I've not brought the City Elite stroller with us, my afternoon down time was limited, as Joe napped in his bed at the house.  That's a metaphorical changing of the guard I'm not too excited about, to tell you the truth.  
• Dinner at the Pickle Factory, another regular stop for us.  The thinnest of thin crust pizza is always a hit.  The owner - something of a curmudgeon - literally groaned, sat down at the bar and put his head in his hands when I ordered a second pizza.  Strange but typical for the Pickle Factory.  My buddy, David Hanchrow, stopped by on his way back from Destin.
• Jude and I finished reading "Beautiful Ruins," by Jess Walter.  What a fantastic novel!  Pasquale Tursi and Dee Moray are characters that will stay with me for a long time.  I want to stay at The Hotel Adequate View on the coast, in Italy.
• I'm well into "Voyager," by Russell Banks.  It's travel memoir he wrote and recently published, with collections of some of his older pieces as well as some new pieces.  I'd forgotten how much I enjoy his writing.  
• The Growler Garage, which had just opened up when we visited Santa Rosa Beach last year.  
• Jed, always Jed, at Blue Mountain Creamery.  The boys talk all year long about seeing Jed when we get to Santa Rosa Beach.  We first met him 6 years ago, I think, when J.P. was 2 and his family had just opened Blue Mountain Creamery.  Business was spotty then but boy have things changed as the years have passed.  Jed is in his early 20's now - all grown up - and Blue Mountain Creamery is killing it.  The boys love the ice cream but they really, really love Jed.  We brought him some Nashville swag - t-shirts from Edley's BBQ and the Filling Station and a hat from Martin's BBQ.  
• I made lunch for the boys every day and we had dinner, mostly takeout, from La Playa (twice), Goatfeathers, Louis Louis (a new place we went to, although it was "meh"), Local Catch, Pizza By the Sea and the Pickle Factory.  We're creatures of habit, for sure.
• I listend to a fascinating WTF (Marc Maron) podcast with James L. Brooks, during one of my runs past the golf course and nearby lake, a route a hadn't run in a few years.  Good stuff.  

That's about it, really.  On the whole, it seemed like a little less eventful of a trip than in years past, perhaps because it rained so much and there was so much of the Olympics to watching on television. 

It's late, we're partially packed and I'm already well into reentry mode.  I'm going to get crushed at work the rest of August and in September, so it's time to get back home and get back to work.

Beach Boys

It's Monday afternoon, two days into our annual vacation to Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.  Jude and the boys are napping and I'm sitting at the bar at Wine World in Watercolor on 30A, watching it rain outside.  This is a regular haunt for me on beach afternoons, as I normally stop in at least once for an afternoon glass of wine during the week we're at the beach.  It's not crowded and the Summer Olympics (Rio) is showing on a pair of flatscreen televisions above the bar.  It's quiet and cool, with my man, Tom Petty (and the Heartbreakers) playing in the background ("The Waiting").

We left Nashville on Saturday a few minutes before 8 a.m., an early start for us and less than an hour after our planned departure time of 7 a.m.  That was an aspirational goal, for sure, and I was tickled to get on the road before 8 a.m.  Amazingly, we stopped only once, just on the other side of Montgomery, AL, when we exited I65(S) to begin the rural portion of our drive through Alabama to Florida.  And even more amazing, J.P. did not get sick on the drive down.  He slept most of the way - Dramamine is a miracle drug - hilariously so, while wearing a black sleeping mask.  We made it in 7 1/2 hours, a record for us.  The trip down was marred only by the fact that using my cell phone - I plotted our corse to Goatfeathers East, in Sea Grove, and not to the Goatfeathers in Santa Rosa Beach, across from our beach house in Old Florida Village.

Sunday morning and this morning, after Jude's walk on the beach and my run, we took the boys to the beach.  Like there dad, they can't get enough of the beach.  I've always attributed my love of the beach to the fact that I was born and spent my early years in California, going to the beach at the Pacific Ocean on a fairly regular basis.  I could easily, I mean easily, live at the beach.  Any beach, really.  I used to love going to Litchfield Beach, South Carolina, in December a lifetime ago, when it was too cold to get in the ocean.  There always has been something rejuvenating to me about being near the ocean, seeing it, hearing it and smelling it.  The ocean has restorative powers, or so it seems to me.

Joe loves the beach and the ocean, delighting in standing in shallow water and letting the waves break on the shore over his legs and feet.  It's a joy to watch him laugh and squeal as he tries to jump over wave after wave, many times falling down in the process.  Joe's adventurous nature is prominent at the beach, and Jude and I have to keep a close eye on him at all times to prevent him form walking too far out into the ocean or getting knocked down and rolled over by the waves.  At 4, I think J.P. was more cautious and less inclined to recklessly wade straight into the ocean.

J.P. loves the ocean, too.  He and I already have spent a great deal of time throwing the football in the waves or skipping a ball across the water to each other.  This morning, we threw the ball back and forth for almost an hour while Jude and Joe played a version of "paddleball baseball" on the beach.

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, while Jude went to the beach and ran a couple of errands, the boys and I went to the pool.  We invented a baseball game where J.P. was an outfielder, I was the shortstop and Joe was the third baseman or catcher.  When I threw the ball into the air (simulating a hit), J.P. caught it or picked it up if he didn't catch it and threw it to em I relayed it to Joe.  We made double plays or, if J.P. or Joe dropped the ball, error.  Like all of our made up sports games, it was spontaneous and perfect, just me hanging out with my boys, laughing and playing, wishing I could stop time for a bit.

Camp Daddy

It's August, which means the end of summer camps, which means Jude and I are scrambling to find daytime childcare for J.P. and Joe, which means our schedules are even crazier.  

Monday, I took the day off and spent it with the boys.  We called it "Camp Daddy."  It was a good day, for sure.

After watching videos on J.P.'s iPad and playing Subway Surfer while I showered, the boys and I went to Bongo Java.  There, over breakfast, we did some more "film study" which, as referenced before, consists of us taking turns picking sports videos to watch on Youtube.  These days, Joe is particularly into Mike Trout highlights, though that will change when hockey season starts in a couple of months.

Next, we went home, changed into our bathing suits and headed across town to the East Nashville YMCA.  We arrived just as the pool was opening.  Although it was crowded with parents and children squeezing a last day or two at the pool before Metro Nashville Public Schools began, the boys and I had fun.  With Joe in the shallow end of the pool and J.P. across the rope in the deeper end,  I alternated throwing a "skip ball" (pop flies) to each of them.  "Make me dive, Daddy!" J.P. said, over and over, as I tossed the ball skyward, over mothers and children splashing an playing.  Joe belly flopped off the side of the pool, into the water, as J.P. and I laughed.

After we finished up at the pool, I took the boys to Five Points Pizza in East Nashville for lunch.  Jude met us there and we enjoyed a rare weekday family lunch with the hipsters from across the river.  Good pizza, too.

I put Joe down for a nap at home after lunch.  J.P. wondered down after 30 minutes of "quiet time," only to find me napping on the bed, exhausted.  He played on his iPad for an hour while I slept.  Joe walked groggily downstairs a little after 4:00 p.m. and we watched part of "Back to the Future" together.  (note to self:  probably not an appropriate move for 8 and 4 year olds).

To top of our day, it was off to swimming lessons at Miss Sarah's pool in Green Hills.

I'm slammed at work and more behind now, but I treasured having the day to spend with my boys.  Camp Daddy.