August 13, 2017
The Board
The fun of off days is being able to spend time with family! After I got done working Saturday, we planned on meeting up with Aunt Becca and Anastasia. (Jillian calls her “my almost-my-age sister cousin” because Anastasia is 4 and Jillian is 5.) Our start time got delayed, as usual, but that happened on both ends. (Secretly, I love it when that happens! It’s like it was orchestrated!) We were “sardined” into the van with sand toys, boogie boards (which originally belonged to my sisters and brothers), towels to line seats, the canopy tent (usually used for craft and book shows), and two camp chairs. Oh yes, and add the apples and cherries from our 3-minutes stop by the Produce Market. (Our part of the snacks – we remembered Lucas’ water cup but forgot the gallon of water.)
And we had the surfboard. THE. As in, there is no other like it. It was my Dad’s ages ago. He rode it up and down A1A before the overgrown beach houses obscured the ocean view. It is bright yellow with a blue “arrow” on the front. (The girls claim this gives it extra speed.) It has a few bumps and dings – yes, see that? That one was from my only-ever attempt to stand at North Vilano Beach where the wave dropped me on the shells. I like to call it “mine” but invariably it is referred to as “Granddaddy’s surfboard,” because everyone knows where it came from. Christina tries to call it “mine” and Kimberly is starting to call it “mine” so maybe that is the official name, “Mine,” since I’m not done with it yet! Honestly, we compromise; it is “ours,” and we all love to share it.
When our sardine can turned into the beach park north of the pier, the girls spotted Aunt Becca’s car behind us and started screaming, “Yeah! Aunt Becca!” and “I see Grandma’s hair!” Lucas napped through all of this commotion. We played musical parking spots until we found two side-by-side and the troupe tumbled out of the vehicles, hugged and squished each other in greeting, grabbed their assigned items, and paraded up the walkover to the beach. Lucas and I took up the rear, but Grandma stopped to help another little one.
Lucas spied Grandma. “Mommy! MY GRANDMA is HERE!!” That woke him up! Anastasia ran past and he squealed “my ‘STASIA!” Now squirming with excitement, he heard my sister. “Mommy! Grandma! My Aunt Becca HERE!” He didn’t get down, but twisted around to see her. “Mommy, THE BEACH!” He yelled as we started going down the walkover steps. He then announced to everyone else who chose to hear that he was at the beach and named everyone he came with in a very quickly smashed up string of excited words.
Set up was fast and the children launched into the ocean in twos and threes while the adults paused to relax and say hello in the shade. Lucas discovered Anastasia’s sand toys.
Jillian and Anastasia hit the surf on boogie boards.
One visible head is part of the three heads in the distance belonging to Jaquline, Kimberly, and Rebeccah.
Christina took the surfboard out and after a couple of rides to discover the safety of the sand bar and how shallow the water actually was. She started giving tandem rides to the older girls and “baby wave rides” to the littler ones. Mom got to tow the middle ones out one at a time to catch waves.
When everyone paused to refuel, the surfboard doubled as a comfy sand-free bench.
We enjoyed rain in the water and played shipwreck. The two littlest were in a boat, the others on boards, and Rebeccah, Christina, Aunt Becca, and Mommy guiding and swimming out “in the deep” just before the sandbar. We pretended we were shipwreck survivors trying to navigate the waves (as if there wasn’t a beach 20 feet away) and keep each other afloat while Grandma watched for approaching ships and held down the fort. (Quite literally, as the wind was picking up the canopy!) Christina, Jaquline, Anastasia, and Lucas built a big hole in a tide pool and played like the Funny Sisters in Sisters at the Seashore. (Lucas kept jumping in it!)
Join us next time, another adventure awaits! (And everyone slept all through the night!)
Thanks for reading!
Type at you next time…
~Nancy Tart
Yes, it was a FUN afternoon!! ❤ ? It brought back many memories of watching Gary (Granddaddy) out in the waves throughout the years. First, when we were dating and after we were married, I would watch him surfing at Tybee Island(on the same yellow surf board). Then after our children, seven in all, got big enough, I watched Gary show them how to surf while he stayed close by in case of “tumbles”(at Tybee Island and Vilano Beach – on the same yellow surf board). Our younger ones enjoyed playing in the sand, watching the older ones & Daddy, and riding the boogie boards, while I stayed close by on the shore. The setting was perfect for sharing some of those memories with my grandchildren as they rested (and snacked) between water and sand play. ? Memories and making memories, the two get intertwined while watching your children and grandchildren experience the surf and sand as your husband, your children and you experienced them years ago. ? ❤ Family, fun, traditions!!
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