BLOGGED ALONG THE WAY: COASTAL LIVING

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September 23, 2015 – I woke up, again, early in the morning to catch the sunrise.  It turned out that Amy had wanted to go with us yesterday morning, but no one had woken her up!  Oops!  We decided to go again this morning so she could see it.  She, Aunt Brenda, and I walked out to the beach and started walking, talking, and picking up shells.  We had a really good time!  Again, we lost track of time, and wound up walking way, way down the beach. The sunrise was cloudy, but still very beautiful!  This beach is very dog friendly, and almost every day we have seen someone walking a dog.  Today we saw an adorable English Bulldog carrying his very special stick.  I wanted to pet him, but his human looked very grumpy, so we just said hello to him (the dog, not the human) and walked on.  We finally had to turn around and go back when we realized we couldn’t even see where our house was anymore!
When we got back, we had breakfast and I decided to change into my swimsuit.  I know, I know, but there are different rules about swimsuits when I’m at the beach!  I decided to do more beach combing (shut up) but I also wanted to sit and chill out for a while if I wanted to, so this time I took a chair.
I actually never sat in the chair, to be honest. I walked for a while, and then I got into the water with everyone else!  The waves were bigger today than they’d been so far because there had been a storm the night before, so we had a lot of fun jumping around in the gulf.  Steve carried me out into the deeper water and held on to me because I was too short to touch the bottom, which was funny.  I’m way to heavy for him to carry on land, but he could just stick me under his arm and carry me out whenever the tide pushed us towards the shore!  We don’t normally touch each other very much in public, so it felt a little weird to be carried around, but I enjoyed it!  Everyone was out at the beach at the same time this time, and we had no plans to go anywhere, so we stayed out there for several hours.  Unfortunately, because we stayed out so long, I got very sunburned.  I was, of course, lily white from not going outside into the heat and humidity of the North Alabama summer any more than necessary, so before going out to the beach, I promise I put on sunblock.  I do not relish the idea of looking like a leather handbag when I’m in my 40’s nor do I want to get skin cancer.  I even got out of the water to reapply the sunblock, but I think I must have been standing in the wrong place when I applied the spray and the wind blew it away from my skin instead of letting it get on it.  I don’t know, but I do know I am burned.  Ouchie.  Taking a shower after going back inside suuuuuuucked. We have a great deal of water pressure. 
I had put a Boston Butt in the crock-pot earlier in the day, and by the time Steve and I got back inside it was ready to eat, so we had lunch.  It was good, if I do say so myself, but it largely went to waste. I only found that out later. Apparently my skills as a chef are well known, but I promise, you can’t really go wrong making most things in a crock-pot.  Oh well, what can you do?    Everyone else stayed out at the beach a lot longer than we did, so Steve and I watched TV, read and took naps.  That is one of the most wonderful things about going on vacation.  Being able to take a nap or just hang out whenever you like. 
By the time everyone came back inside, it was getting late, Steve and I thought of something we needed from “The Pig” (or maybe it was just an excuse to get out of the house for a bit. Little bit of column a, little bit of column b) and so we drove back to Port St. Joe to run that errand.  Things close early around here, but we managed to get what we needed before they locked us inside!
When we got back, Greg and his two older kids were there, so we sat around and talked for a while.  After my very long day of swimming and sunburning, I was exhausted, so I got ready for bed while everyone else was still up.   
Y’all, I’m so burned.