The Beach

Oh how I love the beach.  I love any beach, any time of year but I especially love my family’s annual April beach trip to Garden City Beach, SC.  Last year, Matt and I were able to join our family for the whole week at the beach but this year because of work schedules we had to make the most of our too-short 3.5 days there!  We managed to fit it all in…

Saturday night we celebrated my mom’s upcoming retirement from her career as a elementary school teacher with champagne and cupcakes!  The cupcakes were made by my super talented friend Abbie (the same one who made Matt’s birthday cake a few months ago.)  Not only are they adorable, but they taste so good. 

Congrats Mom!!  My mom keeps telling everyone she got accepted for a new job position she applied for five years ago – Grandma.  (I appreciate the gentle reminder we’ve kept her waiting a whole five years and like to tell my sister that that means now she’s married the clock is ON.) 

We had GORGEOUS weather this week.  April can be hit or miss weather at the beach – but that will never stop a bunch of Yankees from spreading their towels out and claiming the sun.  It makes me laugh to look up and down the beach and see the scores of people splashing in the freezing ocean – you can tell immediately who has traveled down from NY, NJ and Ontario for their spring breaks.

Fortunately we didn’t have to wear our Yankees tough skin on the beach this week {since I don’t have mine anymore} – each day was warmer then the next and we got plenty of time in the sun.  Even Buddy was totally content curled up on a blanket under an umbrella.

Speaking of Buddy, one of the “perks” of bringing your dog to the beach is getting to wake up at sunrise every day to take him out!  He usually gets up around 6:30 or so to go out, and at home I just let him out the back door and if it’s not time for me to get up, we head back to bed.  But here the back door was a wooden staircases that led straight to a wide open beach, so I thought it in my best interest to actually put the leash on and walk him.  It turned out to be one of my favorite moments of each day.  There is nothing so beautiful as the sun coming up on an almost-empty beach.  One morning we were out just as it was literally coming up over the water, and we plopped down in the sand to watch the sun climb higher and higher in the sky from dawn to full morning daylight. 

I am okay with this version of 6:30.  Sure beats an alarm clock and fumbling to the kitchen to mash the Keurig button.

Ok, so maybe you still need the mash the Keurig button.

We also, of course, had our favorite Claffey family beach tradition – buttery rubber bands! 

Katie and Drew posed for this picture while we were waiting for our last rounds of clams to come up and I’m pretty sure it looks like it belongs in a church directory.  Awkward is their specialty.

It was a condensed version of our usual beach trip, but expert beach goers that we are, we managed in everything that makes a Claffey beach trip great: surf, sand, hot dogs, clams, golf, walks, family time, beer.  Ok ix-nay on that last one for me…. maybe next year.  I don’t think Baby C would take too kindly to that! 

See you next year, beach!