Nice Things About Summer- Beach

You know what a nice thing about summer is? The beach. My dad took this photo in about 1983, give or take a year. Nags Head, NC- my home away from home.

You know what's even better than the beach?

A beach with the girlfriends.

A group of us gals used to go to Nags Head every year, no boys allowed. The makeup of the group varied  somewhat from year to year- coworkers, friends, kids, friends of kid-, but there was a core group of 3 or 4 of us who went every year for about ten years. Funny thing, the no boys rule was taken very seriously as turned out those with kids had girls.

My husband starting going a couple years after we got married but he's just one of the girls. That's not a reflection on Big Un's masculinity but more on his personality. I've never met anyone who seems to be able to fit in anywhere with anyone like my husband does. He's not a cameleon, he just is who he is and accepts most people on the same basis. Good guy. He made a great babysitter that year when we girls headed out for the night!! He's the one who came up with the idea of Big Un's Beer and Bait Shop as a retirement plan.

"Coldest beer, freshest bait,
best BS on the Outer Banks." 

We figured we would hire some old sea dog fisherman to hang out and give advice and we would do all the hard labor. Plus, we would need some bodacious blonde at the cash register. I'm blonde but my bodacious parts seemed to have migrated to my mid-section the past few years. Not attractive customer bait.

Eventually it was just my husband and I who made the yearly trek to the beach, towing the kid and all her flotsam along behind us. We used to go in September or October after school started and the rental rates went down. But once my kid started kindergarten, we had to start paying regular rates again as anyone with kids can tell you that once they start school, your schedule and life are determined to a large extent by the school district.

It's been a couple of years now since we've gone to the beach, something I swore would never happen. The first year I missed I was hugely pregnant. I thought it would make a good story to birth the kid on a beach blanket under an umbrella buy my midwife objected. So life changes and you adjust. But, like losing a red-hot sports rivalry, there's always next year.

Because going to the beach is

a nice thing about summer.