This is sort of a random collection of photos, but I have an explanation that seems tedious to explain. The short version is that I currently don’t have a working cord for my phone – it was severed in transit to the beach. I need to replace my old phone, and I never seem to get around to figuring out what to buy next. And so I’ve stalled on buying new parts for an old phone. I charge it in my car, and stay off it to preserve the battery. It’s a quirky thing, but so am I. So while I waffle on decisions that cost a lot of money, I have vacation photos on my phone that are just sitting there. I realize there are alternative ways to access them – but again, tedious and lame, I’ll own in.
So here is the random collection of photos from my nice camera. I didn’t use it a whole lot during the week, but I like the photos that are on it.
My parents were gracious enough to invite our family and my sister’s family to join them this year. We’ve done this a few other times, and it’s always a lot of fun. There’s a different dynamic than when just the four of us go, but the bigger group trips are both fun and relaxing. In fact, this might have been one of the most relaxing vacations we’ve had in awhile.
We kept everything really simple. Planned meals and grocery runs ahead of time, and limited the number of times we ate out. We’ve discovered that we really like to maximize our outdoor time, and getting cleaned up for dinner cuts into that quite a bit. My sister’s family spends a lot of time at the pool each summer, and my parents hit the beach several times a year. But these seven days are what we’ve got, and we try to get the most out of them.
I kept up my ritual of waking just before sunrise and going for a run each morning. With the shift to Eastern Standard Time, that means I’m waking up at what feels like 4:45am each morning. But it’s worth it. I just know that by nine each night I’m ready for bed! I set a goal to run the equivalent of a full marathon over the course of the week and I broke that. I averaged a 4.5 mile loop each day for six days, and walked the same loop on the last morning with M. I took at least two to three other beach walks a day, and would have taken up residence on the paddleboard if I could have. It was excellent paddleboarding weather – smooth seas and not a lot of chop. It was a pretty active week, but I loved it. It was just what we all needed.
We managed to remain sunburn-free by tearing through an extraordinary amount of SPF 50 each day. There was some pool swimming and splashing, but mostly a whole lot of beach time. M and I had a porch off our bedroom that faced the ocean. We sat out there often, and could easily see where the rest of the family was. We could hear voices below or across the yard, or see cousins walking down or back across the walkway over the dunes. I loved having the shutters open – even when we walked into the condo at the opposite end, we could see the ocean at the other end of the hallway. I miss that view. Until next time…
