Beach Time!

My family (Karrie's) has always liked the beach.  I remember growing up as a child, sharing beach houses in North Carolina with family friends.  I remember taking one of my high school friends to the beach and having a BLAST in the surf!

Luckily, I ended up marrying someone who also loves being near the water.  I think it's safe to say we like different things about the beach, but at least we are both happy there.  I enjoy the sound of the ocean lapping on the sand and the peace that brings.  I like the sound of kids having fun.  I think it's safe to say the thing Jon enjoys the most is the warmth.  Don't get me wrong, he also enjoys the peace and quiet of the waves too, but he REALLY enjoys warm.

Three years ago, Jon and I went on an anniversary cruise and we both had an opportunity to use a Flow Rider.  I tried "surfing" once and ended up falling not-so-gracefully and decided belly boarding was more my style.  Jon on the other hand, really enjoyed trying to surf.  He even stayed up for a little while. 

As soon as we knew we were going to sty in Florida for a few weeks, we started getting the kids beach toys.  In fact, some of the kid's Christmas gifts were beach toys.  Today, was the first time they got to use them... today we went to Cocoa Beach. 

For those of you who have never been to Florida, the entire drive down 95 from the time you hit Florida, the billboards let you know that Cocoa Beach is the surfing capital of Florida.  Jon has wanted to surf for years, so we did a little research and found out that Cocoa Beach is actually a really good place to learn to surf.  So.... today we rented a surf board for the afternoon so Jon could try to surf. 

He had a great time!  He stood on his second try and he even had a few long runs.  While he was surfing the kids and I were playing in the sand and the surf.  Unfortunately, there were some jelly fish in the water and my daughter got stung pretty good (it left her with what looked like a blister for a couple hours), but it did not deter her from going in the water (she was hyper-vigilant about jelly fish though).

Guess what?  I went surfing too.  Guess what else?  I stood up and had a half-descent run too!  I think it's safe to say the whole family had a GREAT time at the beach today.

With all that fun, we were not without some injuries... my daughter had the jelly fish sting, Karrie ended up with a nasty sand burn (or was it a cut from a shell?), and Jon jammed his toe so badly we had to call it a day a bit earlier than we had hoped.

We are currently trying to decide where we want to live.  The debate is between Texas and Florida.  I am rooting for Florida.  My hope is that surfing will help lean Jon in the same direction.  Oh, and I think we both found something else we enjoy about the beach that we agree upon.  We are both totally stoked to do that again.