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.