Navarre Beach Vacation 2008

Our trip was WONDERFUL!!! It was even more fun than I had anticipated. I think I would have had fun camping out in the Walmart parking lot for a week just because we were taking our first vacation with my twin sister, Vicki, and her family, but being on beautiful Navarre Beach with them was so amazing!

We woke up each morning with no decision any more pressing than what time we would hit the beach and when we would eat. We stayed up late at night, then got up early, racing the sun for the first glimpse of the new day. We used lots of sunscreen, then marveled at how the sun still managed to burn us....always vowing to use more the next day. We cooked and ate our meals in wet swimsuits and went to bed at night with just a hint of sand in our bed sheets....not quite sure how it even got there.

We rode bikes the length of the beach and flew kites at night. It was always amazing how different the beach felt at night, with less people and everything covered as if by one big shadow, broken only by the tiny circles of light searching for crabs in the sand.

I'm not sure what we did more of...playing or relaxing!

I do know that after a couple of days of sore muscles and burned skin, there seemed to be more and more relaxing!

Vicki and I didn't set out to look alike the entire trip, but it seemed like every morning we just happened to put on the same color ...or same hat....or anything alike that made us stand out as twins. I would be lying if I said that it wasn't fun to play on that!! I actually think that we look more alike now than we have in years.

As I think back on our four days together and remember the fun, I also recall some very important lessons that we learned from our beach vacation! Here they are:

LESSONS FROM A BEACH VACATION

1. Sunscreen doesn't "fix" anything.

2. No degree of tan...or sunburn...will make a swimsuit look good on you if it doesn't. If it can't do it on its own, it can't do it with help!!

3. If your husband tells you that he is enjoying the view, he may not be talking about the water.

4. Everything that you haul down to the beach for a day's enjoyment will have to be hauled back up at the end of the day....when you are tired and most likely sunburned.

5. The joyride on your bike with the wind will turn into an "un"joyful struggle on the way back...pushing against the wind on legs that half an hour ago seemed so much stronger.

6. If you decide to sunburn your face, take off the sunshades first!

7. If you are going to wear different swimsuits on your vacation, try to find some with basically the same shape...or at least with straps somewhere in the same vicinity. A tan line was never meant to be shared with everyone else...really, save it for your private primping time in front of the bathroom mirror before your shower!

8. Flip flops on the beach are only good for one thing....throwing sand up the back of your shorts...you'll get plenty of that the first time you wipe out in the waves.

9. Speaking of wipe outs, your 2-piece swimsuit will probably NOT be covering the same areas coming out of a wipe out as it did going into it. No matter how anxious you are to GET OUT of the water, stay down long enough to fix "things"!!

10. Finally, leave all of your problems at home.....slow down and.....JUST ENJOY EVERY MINUTE. It will be over all too soon, and you'll find yourself loading up to go home and wondering where the time went!!

Thank you Vicki and Jose' for sharing your summer vacation with us. I hope it won't be our last one together!!!