Still a day behind on my 12 Posts of Christmas goal, but I am determined. Check out the first post here.
My youngest regularly mentioned going to the beach. He never saw the ocean. He wanted to build a sand castle. Etc. It. Was. Constant. For a while the concern involved his inability to swim. My oldest learned at the YMCA, but we did not stay as diligent with my younger son.
Interestingly enough, he taught himself how to swim. That kid jumped right into our pool and started moving. My MIL decided it was time. She offered to treat us to a trip to the beach. This past summer we packed our bags and headed to South Padre.
Let me take a brief moment and readdress my anxiety. As mentioned in First Day of Christmas post, my stress levels remain a constant 11 on a scale 1-10. Here are all the reasons I had no desire to take my family to the beach:
- Flight issues
- Flying with children (you never really know how that will end up)
- Pressure issues for me since my ears are messed up
- Loss of luggage
- Bad weather
- Getting lost trying to find the condo
- Sand-I don't like sand
- The boys liking the idea of the beach more than the actual beach
- Sunburn/heat exhaustion
- Crowded beaches
- Undertow drowning one of us
- Sharks-they are getting bolder you know
- Jellyfish
- Salt water stinging my freshly shaven legs (seriously, that hurts yo)
- Losing my children at some point (airport, restaurants, beach, wherever we've never been before)
- Children being kidnapped
Basically, I dwelled constantly on the one million ways we were never going to survive this trip.
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| Unless of course this guy showed up. Then everything would be fine. |
We stayed on the beach in an Airbnb. We are definitely Airbnbelievers (new word). The place was a cute condo with two bedrooms and kitchen. We loaded up on snacks and breakfast foods. What I really love about Airbnbs is the ability to wash all our clothes before packing to return home.
The first afternoon we arrived and headed straight for the beach. We couldn't contain our excitement for Benji's reaction now that a five minute walk is all it took to get to the ocean. Wait for iiiittttt...
He was not having it.
He refused to go into the water. He refused to come out from under the beach umbrella. He was irritated with the sand (duh). We could not believe it. All his begging to get there, and he was ready to go home.
Well, it only lasted for that day. Fortunately, the next morning brought a different attitude. Benji dived into the ocean with all the gumption he uses in our pool at home. He fell completely in love with the beach. Ha ha ha. I guess he needed a bit of time to adjust. The ocean is rather large after all.
In the end, the trip provided amazing memories. The boys are natural swimmers and wanted to live in the water. We ate at interesting places, attended Mass as the beautiful local parish-Our Lady, Star of the Sea , went on a dolphin spotting tour, and spent time at Sea Turtle Inc. The absolutely coolest thing we witnessed was a baby sea turtle release. We happened to be visiting during hatching season. Every morning I would check their FB page to see if any sea turtles were ready to return to the ocean, and the morning before we left we hit the jackpot!
For the record, only 3 of the 16 things I worried about happened. I'm calling that a win! If you didn't see the pics as I posted them on Insta and FB, here are some of my faves:
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