September 1st

Hi it’s Christina –

Good morning! First I want to wish a very Happy Anniversary to my amazing in-laws. Love you guys! Hope you enjoy your special day while in AC!

Happy September everyone! Can you believe it? Where did the summer go? I don’t know about you, but I am SO not ready for it to be over yet!

The weather today isn’t looking so great, so we very well just might pack it up and head home. I’m going to let everyone sleep until 8:30, and then I am going to roust the troops. We need to be out by 10:00 and I’m not doing it all by myself.

Yesterday was a banner beach day, and I have the red face to prove it. I used the wrong sunscreen – because I was being lazy and didn’t feel like digging in the bag for the correct one – so my face also has a lovely itchy rash under the sunburn. It’s my own dang fault, no one to blame but myself.

It was noon by the time we finished our breakfast at Samuel’s, which was as yummy as I remember it, so we didn’t get on the beach until 12:30. Even though the temp yesterday was only 82, it felt a whole lot hotter, so I knew I would be spending most of my day in the water. Lucky for me, the water wasn’t clod yesterday, but boy was it rough, wave after rolling wave. You would duck under one, come up, then barely have enough time to wipe the water from your eyes before you had to dive again.

It got tiring quickly, so even though it was a little further out than I wanted to go, I decided to try to get past the breakers. That didn’t work out so well, because at waist deep the water under the waves was calm, at chest deep, there was a rip current. It took all of five minutes for me to drift into the current.

One of PJ’s friends, Billy, was out there with me. He started swimming straight toward shore, and I headed in a slight diagonal. When he noticed I wasn’t with him, he stopped and swam back over to me. Because I’m still nursing that shoulder injury, I knew I wouldn’t have the strength in my arm to even attempt a straight swim, and the last thing I needed out there was for it to cramp up on me. So I kept swimming along, almost parallel to the shore, only getting marginally closer as I went, until I was free of the current. No panic, totally relaxed, it only meant a longer walk along the water’s edge back to our blanket.

I may not be as strong a swimmer as I once was, but I do know my limitations, and I will make every effort not to put myself into a situation I can’t handle. Future trips into the water yesterday stayed at waste level, and I just dealt with having to duck under every twenty seconds. Well, one other time I ventured deeper so I could get a little closer to the dolphins, but the tide was going out, so the current had receded and there was no undertow.

Dani’s friend Adam and I started to build a sand sculpture, but we ran out of time and couldn’t finish it. We made a Mako, and the head came out really good, but the body was just slapped together. I wish I had gotten a picture, but my husband and Dani had already headed back to the room, and the camera was with them. Other passersby on the beach took pictures of it though, so I guess it wasn’t half bad. If we had more than half an hour, it would have turned out good.

We did go to our friends Ben and Bernadette’s house last night for dinner. It was nice to see them, but it was too short. We tried to coordinate a time to be able to come down for a proper visit, but between their schedule and ours, we may have to wait until next year, and that’s really sad.

Oh well, I know it’s only seven, but I’m going to go get dressed and start packing up. I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!