Do you know traveling is simply not a love of mine. Three hours and I've developed a pretty annoying leg ache, and I'm just over it. Flagler Beach is 14 hours if you don't have any trouble. This time Ceece took Bugg and I took Bean. I got a couple of new books, one for each kiddo on Audible.
When I'm stuck in a car and can't find a station I like for love nor money, I can tolerate books on tape, or whatever they are on, but I can't say that is my preferred way to read. I read way too fast and if the narrator isn't the caliber of let's say, Morgan Freeman, meh, not too interested. Bean's book was
Echo, a new one by a favored author, Pamela Munoz Ryan, but a not so great narrator. We didn't get very far on that one. The first day traffic was just awful and that's all. Finally we made to the other side of Atlanta and stopped for the night.
Okay, so I don't like hotels either. Pfthhhh. But, I was glad to be out of the car and watched the kids swim awhile and tried to get some sleep.
On Saturday, I traded for Missy Bugg and another new to me book,
Inkheart. While I would have read that story much, much faster than listening, I absolutely love to hear Lynn Redgrave narrate. Wow, she does such a great job. It was much smoother sailing on day two, no real traffic problems at all. On 75 we stopped at an awesome pecan store where you could sample all the wares and a bit further down, a bookstore where we found books from 99 cents to $4, be still my heart.
We arrived at our beach house in time for Ceece to take the kids to the ocean and I went to the grocery. It's interesting trying to figure out what you have to have for two weeks or three different families. I cooked several evenings and we went out a few times.
It's a little unnerving to plan something as significant as a dolphin swim when you have no idea when a storm will pop up. We decided it would be best to do it sooner, than later. We visited a sea turtle and some stingrays, watched the sweet new baby boy dolphin, Boomer, so called because of being born in a thunder storm, for quite awhile and then it was Bugg's turn to have a dolphin encounter.
I'm not sure who loved it more. Ceece grinned so hard the entire time, I feared her cheeks would fall off.
Shortly after arriving, Bean caught his first lizard. They really were cute and everywhere, except in the house.
We went inland an hour west, to a fresh water springs where the water is always 68 degrees. It is beautiful there, you see right to the bottom of the river.
If there was a negative to the trip, besides that ride down, it was losing Bean for over an hour at this park. Ugh. Thank God, there was really no problem, we just kept missing each other.
I spent most mornings on this back porch, watching the sunrise over the ocean, reading my Bible and having prayer and meditation time. Some mornings, I'd take my Bible right down to the sand to watch and read. It was a needed time for me.
Florescent balloon balls.
Bean would alternate between the boogie board and surf fishing.
It was so strange. We would sit at the waters edge and when the tide went out, it sort of looked like the sand was bubbling all over. Under each of those bubbles was a sand flea (mole crab), they were legion. The ones with the orange eggs on the underside were the prize bait and Bean caught them by the dozens the first few days. By week's end they were flat gone. It took forever to find one for Giddy-Up the next week.
Then the Coquina clams were everywhere. And then, they weren't.
Bugg was more about playing in the sand. We dug a lot of holes.
When we were at the beach five years ago, we had tide pools to play in most every day. This time only one day, but the pools contained critters we'd yet to see and didn't see again the rest of my time there.
On Friday, I drug them all out of bed for a sunrise on the beach. So beautiful, complete with dolphins.
In his spare time from fishing, Bean watched fishing shows.
I brought Bugg a dolphin paint by number, and read her
Pippi Longstocking while we were there.
Ceece took Bean to the pier to fish and I took Bugg to the beach to fly a kite. Every time we went down the stairs, we'd leave our shoes there until we came back up. Sadly, when we came back, they were gone.
She talked me in to flying the kite all the way down to the pier (20 blocks). Here she was doing some crazy stomp dance and generally being cute.
Bean at the pier.
The sun setting over Flagler.
There was a little fair there for the Fourth, so I traded Ceece and stayed on the pier, while she took the Missy Mam to get her face painted.
I know these opportunities will likely be less and less as they get older and move on to other things. I am thankful for the time we had.
Of course, when I went to bed that night, knowing they were half way home, I found a reminder of my boy when I discovered a crab in my bed. Ha, ha. No life was lost, I didn't have a heart attack and the crab was plastic.
