Labor Day Weekend

Virginia Beach. Oh the sand, the surf...and the seaweed. Kid you not, even yesterday I was brushing the stuff out of my hair. Not awesome. Nonetheless, I was one of the lucky few--er, lucky thousands--who got to spend the holiday weekend at the beach with friends.

The two young ladies you see with me traveled from Lexington to VA Beach to run the RocknRoll VA Beach 1/2 Marathon. Sadly, Julia (right) broke her foot and couldn't participate. So she and I cheered on Elissa (center...oh wait, nope) and Julia's brother (far left, no, farther, no, farther), who ran in her stead. I met up with my old pals to hang out with Julia's family in Portsmouth, VA and enjoy the ocean.

Julia's brother, sister-in-law, and two nephews live about 35 minutes away from the beach, so I got to have a nice pleasant weekend without having to be smack on the dirty shores all the time. No offense! I got to play trains, cars, eat good home cooked meals, play bounce-the-ball-off-my-bum with 4 yr. old kids in the park (their idea, not mine) and take relaxing neighborhood walks. I watched a little Thomas the Train (or is it Thomas the Tank Engine?), a little Ocean's 11, and some Knight's Tale. Eclectic, no?

I had a great time catching up with my buddies from Lexington. I got some good sun. Oh, and I attempted the art of body surfing. By day 2, I became fairly adept. I'm guessing that's why the seaweed stayed with me for so long. The icing on the cake was cheering those dedicated marathoning souls who push their bodies to the limit for the glory of my praise. No, that wasn't it. Oh right - they got free foot massages afterward.

The beach was super crowded, but it was still great to be in the ocean again. I haven't had much opportunity to play mermaid in my life, but I still have a heart for the sea, matey. I'm going to credit my Trinidadian roots with that one. The water was cold, but after several squeals and wave splashes my friends and I were comfortable enough to swim out to the best body surfing waves. For those of you who don't know, when you body surf you have to wait for a good wave to come up right behind you. Then, right before it breaks, you start swimming away from it. The wave chases you, if you will. If you've timed it right, you only have to take a couple strokes, the wave breaks, and the current carries you to shore. Now, this can be a problem when it carries you so far that your hands and elbows are scraping the bottom of the ocean and your suit bottoms are filling with sand. Don't worry, those minor details don't dampen the spirits of the true Oceanites. Yeah, I made it a word.

It's been hard to come back to work this week, actually, because I had so much fun away from it. It wasn't too difficult to get back in the sleep routine that I keep during the week, fortunately. I credit a 2.5-year-old and 1-year-old boy with that. Their hours were pretty much 8-7 every night, so my hours were about 9:30-7. Hey, not my usual vacation/weekend schedule but it gave me enough time during the day to really enjoy the sunshine. Were I to have practiced my normal routine, I would have been sleeping between the hours of 1am and Noon. Quite fun, I assure you, but not the best when you're wanting prime beach hours and sunlight. In short, I couldn't have planned a better weekend.

Now it's almost another weekend and I'm trying to figure out how productive I'll be. I've put off getting my VA license for 3 months, so I should probably do that. Uh huh, grocery shopping, post office...prolly should get a haircut. Just talk to me next week. I guarantee you I'll have only read, slept, ate and watched movies all weekend. I love my life.