Don't get too excited. If you're a parent, you will not be enjoying this view. You'll be too busy making trips back and forth to the hotel room carrying heavy beach bags filled with sand toys, boogie boards, and beach rocks that your cherubs declare they can't live without. You'll help build sand castles, play football, and take out kayaks. Planning and acquiring enough snacks and drinks to fill hungry children will take up an extraordinary amount of time. If there appears to be a lull in the activity and you attempt to nap in one of the comfy chairs, there will immediately be a siren song of sibling rivalry demanding your attention.
Remember that bike riding on the beach you were fantasizing about?
It will be fun for about a half mile. Then someone will complain about going too fast, too slow, it's too hot, too far, or beg to stop. Chains will fall off multiple bikes, multiple times, and you'll look wistfully at the other bikers as they ride joyously by with none of these problems.
You'll end the bike ride hot and on edge as you try to encourage your kids to hold it together through the last few feet of sand.
Meal conversations will consist of, "Can I have some?", "Mmmm, this is good", "I hate that!", "Sit down in your chair", "Hey, I didn't get any! That's not fair!", "Do I have to sit there?", "Can I sit by you?", "I don't like this", and "Are you going to eat that?" Lively debate will ensue over whether lemonade or chocolate milk is better.
But...you'll also have funny inside jokes, moments between siblings that warm your heart, and the freedom to just be without all the daily obligations. Less time will be spent on electronic devices and more time will be spent really seeing the ones you love.
And these are the reasons you'll plan to come back and do it all again next year. Right after that loooong drive home!
It looks like you had a wonderful time, I am wishing for days at the beach now. Lovely to see your post, it reminds me we do not holiday enough and not living near a beach, we really should make more of an effort to get to one. It is so refreshing when everyone can leave the technology alone and just be together. :)
ReplyDelete