Away From It All

Just the word vacation brings pleasant feelings. To me, the only bad thing about vacation is the coming home part.

There's something about the beach that's just relaxing and calming. The wind, the water, the endless horizon, the colors, the sound, and the sun together create a special environment. I can tell you we were all depressed about coming home.

It's hard to summarize what we did. A lot of "beachy" things. Swimming, sitting and reading on the beach, boogie boarding, walking, getting sunburned. Our beach house had a pool and a hot tub, which was also great. Karis became quite the little fish and wanted to stay in the hot tub (the pool was a bit chilly) all the time. This is her signature "I'm swimming!" grin that never left her face when she was in the water.

One day we went out on the jet ski. I have always wanted to ride a jet ski. Now I can tell you with confidence that jet skiing is as much fun as it looks. Awesome! Each time I took a turn, I was getting braver-- going faster and farther from the shore. Well, this was all well and good until the last time I went out. The jet ski died. I tried and tried and tried to start it again. I kept looking at the shore, trying to calculate how long and how much effort it would take me to swim back while pushing the stupid thing. Then I thought if I didn't do something, I would drift out to sea and starve to death and it would be weeks before they'd find my scorched, shriveled corpse. Well, I was determined to avoid either of those fates, so I kept at it until I started the stupid thing! I chugged back to shore, feeling a bit proud of my pioneering ways and a bit relieved that some horrid fate hadn't befallen me. Turns out the jet ski was clogged with seaweed, which I could have cleared out while standing in four feet of water. Figures.

I'll continue the vacation report in another post because the photos are not cooperating.

- J -