the beach, the breeze...I call it paradise...

For me, there is no vacation like a beach vacation. I grew up summering on the Jersey shore–my parents usually rented in the same general area, but not the same house–and a vacation really doesn’t feel like a vacation unless a considerable part of it is spent near sand and salt water.

As I’ve gotten older, the addition of rum drinks or gin and tonics, also help to promote a summery feeling.

We’ve spent a great 6 days here, and we’ve still got a day and a half to go–including the Fourth of July holiday, with its attendant festivals (both pancake and strawberry!). I’ll be sad to leave on Saturday, even sadder to return to my overflowing work email inbox, which I’ve been triaging daily while the kids are in bed.

The Bee continues to brown like a nut. I’m not sure which gene pool she slipped out of of–both landisdad and I are burners–but that girl is an easy tanner. The Potato has conquered (mostly) his fear of waves, and spends most of his days dancing in the surf, shaking his butt at the ocean, laughing his fool head off. And me? I’ve managed to read my way through all but one of the books I brought with me (The Alienist is still to come), plus picked up a copy of Netherland from my MIL.

After inspiring the Potato and the Bee to build the ‘great wall of grandma’ out of beach stones on the first day, the kids and I have been building a variety of rock structures, including ‘the biggest mound on earth’ and an underwater sea wall. It never fails to amaze me when we go back the next day (or sometimes even later the same day) that the sea has unrelentingly claimed our structures. But it invariably does.

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