"The Seaside"

The kids have always called our beach in our neighborhood "the beach." Between that and reading The Velveteen Rabbit, they have always called going to the beach in North Carolina going to "the seaside." We had another great week at the seaside this year with Grammy and Grandad. We also got to hook up with Beth, Jim and Ruby for some mini golf. Silly me, I actually picked up a scorecard thinking that we would play a real game. Instead we played the fastest "game" of mini golf I could ever imagine which ended up being a good thing since it was unbearably hot out there!

The first two days there were read flags up, as a leftover present from Hurricane Bill. We stayed close to the shore and the kids splashed around. The second two days were what we refer to as "perfect beach days." Sunny, warm, warm water, crystal clear water, great waves, little to no undertow or rip tide - just all around awesome.

We swam and played in the water and I could see Julia become the water bug that I became so long ago at the beach. She couldn't get enough of the body surfing. By the end of the week she was desperate for a boogey board of her own, so Grammy and Grandad treated both kids to matching boogey boards and they had a blast with them. It's just so much fun to ride waves!!!

Julia caught her first ghost crab all by herself! Brendan came up with the word "turtling." As in "I want to go turtling!" meaning he wanted to go to the pond to look at turtles and feed them. Julia made a new friend, Caroline, who is 6 as well and was a nice friend to play with. The two girls had a great time swimming and body surfing together.

The last day was unbearably sad. As we swam in the waters, close in, around 10:45am the emergency vehicles flew south down the beach. Soon after there was a Coast Guard helicopter obviously searching for someone in the water. It turns out that less than a mile south of where we were swimming a 12 year old boy was swimming with his father and uncle. His mother was watching from the shore. They all went under a wave, the father and uncle came back up and the son never did, but his boogey board washed ashore. The search went until 9pm and included the professionals as well as other people at the beach looking from the shore with their binoculars. This poor family lost their son to the ocean. It still breaks our hearts to think of them. His body washed ashore four days after he was lost about a mile north of where he had been...just where we had been that day. The memories of this year's trip will forever be linked to that family and their tragic experience. It's heartbreaking.