Almost perfect vacation

As the kids get older, we seldom take vacations together. For the past two years we have made a weekly trip to the beach right after the kids got out of school. Last year we went to Surf City, NC and this year we were a couple of miles down the coast at Topsail Beach, NC. This small strip of NC beaches is almost all beach houses with very few hotels or condominiums. It forces us to relax, enjoy the beach and the kids. It is so interesting to watch the kids change how they interact with each other while on vacation together. At home, they all separate into their rooms and seldom interact. While at the beach, the play around in the surf together, play games in the rented beach house and talk to each other while taking a break to watch TV together. It is worth it to take a vacation just to see them talk to each other! For me, a vacation means no computer, no work and no thinking about work and spending time with my wife. In that regard this year was a perfect vacation.

Well I should say almost perfect as we all got sick except for my next to oldest son, who somehow avoided it. My daughter picked up some nasty virus the weekend before from her friend's family. She had a temperature of 104 last Thursday, right before we left on Saturday for the beach. Then our middle son got sick on Wednesday, but in desperation still made it to the beach each day as he had been waiting for a very long time to learn how to surf. Then our oldest son got sick on Thursday. Finally on Friday my wife got sick and today I am not feeling to well either. It starts with a sore throat, then a high temperature, then fever chills and finally after a couple of days it is over. That is pretty amazing that we could still say we had a great family vacation in spite of us getting sick, but it was that good. It may be our final family vacation together like this as our oldest son is joining the Navy soon and our next to oldest is talking of attending a recording studio school far, far away. This may be a year of major change ahead for us.

I must get back to the beach vacation to end on a positive note. My wife and I walked both morning and evening on the beach sand. We had a couple of thunderstorms but it did not really affect us as the kids normally spent a couple hours in the morning and a couple in the afternoon fighting the pounding waves and loving every minute. Even though my wife's parents live at the beach in Wilmington, NC just having a week of continuous beach activity makes them become immersed in it and enjoy it much more than a couple of hours during a weekend visit. The older boys all learning to surf to some degree and that kept them busy trying to conquer a new thing. We also did the ritual sand burying ceremony a couple of times to take a break. One night was especially nice as the full moon appeared in a yellow tint and the moon light reflecting on the water was really special as we could see it from our top floor balcony. Nearly every day we saw black dolphins swimming near the shore when we were in the water playing around. Normally we only see them in Wilmington in the winter, so that was nice.

One final thought on beaches. As a family we have stayed on all of the North Carolina beaches (except Cape Hatteras as it takes a very long time to get there) and all of the Texas beaches and the Gulf Shores in Alabama and Florida. The Texas beaches are not very nice, but were convenient when we lived in Houston and Austin. The drive to Gulf Shores was an all day event but worth it as that is one beautiful beach with white crystalline sand. All of the NC beaches are nice, with some nicer than others and some way more expensive than others. For now I must say that the memory of this last week was really special as it was more than just a beach trip but a true family vacation.

What was amazing to me was the vacation transformation quickly reverted back to normal life in our house as within 30 minutes of arriving, my daughter was on the phone talking to her friends, my next to oldest son took off in his car to see his friends and the other ones were on the computers - all back into their individual worlds as if they never left.