The "J" Files: Tan Lines

We took our first family vacation to the beach for the Independence Day weekend! There is something awe-inspiring about the ocean isn’t there? It’s almost impossible to comprehend the amount of water, the depths, the strange sea creatures and sand creatures for that matter and how it knows its boundaries.

The trip was long but Jimmy did amazingly well in the car for almost 15 hours! We arrived at the state park and quickly set up our tent and got things arranged to our liking and took off to see the beach. We were sticky and sweaty after all that work but as we cleared the last sand dune the breeze from the Gulf hit us and it felt delicious! The walk from our camp site to the beach was about a ¼ mile and unfortunately we forgot the stroller so our arms got a good work out all weekend.

Mercedes took a dip Friday afternoon when we got there but the rest of us didn’t get in until Saturday. We spent the evening cooking dinner and hit the hay relatively early around 10. Ricardo had the brilliant idea of bringing the little a/c from our other house to cool the tent and we didn’t think it would cool us off much but we figured it would be better than nothing. To our surprise we actually got a little chilly! So that was really nice surprise and luxury.

Saturday was Jimmy's 10 month birthday and we spent the majority of morning and afternoon at the beach. Ricardo sat on the beach in his new camping chair with the umbrella, Jimmy sat with him most of the day because while he really liked the sand the waves scared him and he got splashed in the face a couple of times and the salt stung his eyes. Mercedes stayed in the water almost the whole time and I alternated between the water and my towel. I fell asleep at one point on my stomach enjoying the sound of the waves and the hot sun…. Big mistake. Big, HUGE mistake! That evening at the campsite I started feeling that stinging feeling that tells you your burnt pretty good. I had put sunblock on my face and shoulders since that’s where I burn the worst usually so my face didn’t burn too bad but the rest of me did…and my back was the worst. My hair couldn’t be down and leaning back in a chair was misery. Ricardo suffered a similar fate. He wore a cowboy hat, long sleeve shirt and had an umbrella on his chair and he also put on lots of sunblock…everywhere except his feet. His feet are burned so bad and got so swollen that even now 3 days later they are still swollen and painful. I’ve never seen a sunburn so bad.

Despite our sunburns we still enjoyed the rest of our weekend. Sunday we spent the WHOLE day at the beach sitting under a pop up gazebo. Jimmy wore himself out playing in the sand. He laid down and put his whole face in it at one point! I never could get all the sand off of him! I bet the babysitter is still brushing sand out of rolls and creases. The cutest thing is that he has a pacifier tan line!

The drive home Monday was uneventful and we made much better time getting home in 11 hours and 57 minutes! We only had 1 poopy diaper explosion and 2 other close calls.

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure…I’ll work on posting more later.