Of Birthdays and Beaches

I've had some really great birthdays recently. Like last year, I went to Greece--and although I wasn't actually there on my birthday itself, it was close enough and special enough to count as my birthday present to myself. I returned just a few days before my birthday, so I spent the day itself hanging out with my friend Patty, who was visiting from NYC, exploring Boston landmarks like the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, eating delicious food, and kayaking. The year before, I spent my birthday celebrating my friend Aaron's upcoming wedding at a water park in Ohio. While she wore her "bachelorette" crown, I wore a "birthday princess" crown. That weekend was the first time I had seen most of my grad school friends since graduation five months before, so it was one of those days when you stay up talking until 2 a.m. and you don't even notice because you just have so much to say. The year before that, I had a picnic with friends at a park on the Huron River, one of my favorite places in Ann Arbor, just days before packing up and moving to Boston. And the year before that, I spent my birthday in Madagascar, where Patty made chocolate chip cookie cakes (with frosting!) for me and Brennan, my almost-birthday twin, in our solar oven. And this year--this year I got a family beach trip for my birthday. Now that I think of it, I haven't had a boring birthday ever. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a summer birthday!

Anyway, this year's birthday trip was exciting from the moment it started. Colin and I flew out on Thursday, stopping in Nashville with enough time for a leisurely dinner at an airport restaurant. Just as we were leaving the restaurant, we got word that our plane was delayed... by an hour. The plane kept getting more and more delayed, and eventually word came that the plane had hit a bird en route to Chicago, where it was coming from to Nashville. "Everything's fine," the gate agent reassured us, "but they have to do a thorough check to make sure." Well, by the time the plane made it to Nashville, they'd pretty much had time to build an entirely new plane. I think Colin and I spent five or six hours in the Nashville airport. We finally landed in Panama City beach just before midnight, which meant that we finally arrived at Lake Seminole around 2 a.m. You know your family loves you when they drive four hours round trip to pick you up and wait an additional two hours in the airport parking lot because your plane hit a bird and there's nowhere more comfortable to wait in rural Florida.

The next couple days were spent lazing around Lake Seminole, boating, swimming, and sharing happy hour on the dock. Colin even learned how to drive the boat! He was less enthusiastic about the swimming part, though, because his Maine roots have led him to believe that anything warmer than 60 degrees is "too hot." I beg to differ. It's not "refreshing" if you come out of the water with goosebumps, Colin!

Colin takes me, Grandaddy, and Mom for a ride through Seminole State Park.

Grandmother and Mom during happy hour.

Grandaddy and Colin during happy hour.

And then, on Sunday, it was my birthday! Happy 27th, Claire! We packed up the car and left for Mexico Beach, where Rebecca and Peter would meet us. It was a little gray and cloudy at first, but it never actually rained on us. I was so impatient to get there! I think my toes have a magnetic attraction to sand and water. It's like an addiction; I just can't stay away. I tried not to complain, though, because I was 27 after all. Rebecca announced when she was 26 that she would stop whining when she turned 27. Unfortunately for me, the second child always has to follow the precedent of the first. Thanks a lot, Rebecca!

We finally made it to the beach, and Rebecca and Peter were already in their swimsuits lounging in front of the hotel. Colin and I ran to drop off our things in our room and changed into our swimsuits, too, before heading over to the beach house where Mom, Grandmother, and Grandaddy were staying to help them unpack. Many hands make light work, so soon we were stretching out on the snow-white Gulf Coast sand.

The week totally flew by. I woke up early every morning to start my day with a walk on the beach before breakfast. Then it was time for reading, sunbathing, playing frisbee or paddle ball, flying kites, swimming, and hunting for shells. If I was lucky, I could fit in a little of all of that before lunch. After lunch was naptime, reading time, and/or ice-cream-at-Tommy-T's time. More beachbumming until 5:00 or 6:00, which was happy hour--sometimes happy hour on the beach, sometimes happy hour at the picnic table on our porch. Then dinner. Then hunting fiddler crabs with flashlights, then bed. x7.

Happy hour on the beach.

 One day, I told Colin that I wanted to build a sand castle. When I've built castles before, they were small and fairly traditional. But Colin is a lot bigger than me, so I guess he thinks bigger, too. He convinced me to build a castle of epic proportions and complexity. It ended up looking a bit like a ship's prow, and it had multiple terraces, turrets, bridges, moats, and intricate seashell decor. The moment of truth came during happy hour when two small kids ran by and stopped in their tracks to gaze in awe. Next thing we knew, they had excitedly dragged their parents over to show them the masterpiece.

The artists with their castle.

Sadly, the week ended much too quickly. I'm not sure I got my fill of seafood, sand, sun, and surf. But, because I had inadvertently booked our return flights for one day later (that's not the first time it's happened...), Colin and I had one more day at Lake Seminole. That made leaving the beach a little easier. We spent the rest of Saturday boating, swimming, and eating juicy burgers at Big Jim's, which is just about the best possible way to spend a day if you can't be at the beach.

I convinced Colin to swim with me in the lake even though it was "too hot" for his taste.

Love the flowers on the Chattahoochee River, even if they are horribly invasive.

So many lotus flowers and seed pods for the taking!

Hi there, heron.

Kids these days just don't know how to live without their cell phones.

Colin had three goals for his trip to Lake Seminole: see an airboat, see an alligator, and eat a hamburger from Big Jim's. We managed to fit them all into that last Saturday! He actually saw several airboats, including one that drove across the grass (no water necessary with a fan that big...). As for the alligator, we often see small ones off Grandmother and Grandaddy's dock, and this trip was no different. But then, while riding to Big Jim's on Saturday, we saw a huge one resting just under the surface of the water near the bank. It was like a sea monster. Grandaddy idled up towards it as it saw us and started swimming across the channel. Colin stood up to get a better look as the gator passed underneath our boat. I was biting my nails and holding my head in my hands, remembering every horror story I'd ever read about gators angrily flipping boats or leaping into the air to grab their bait. I was sure it was going to come for us. Again, because I'm 27 now, I tried not to whine. But eventually I suggested that I really didn't want to die and maybe we could just drive away now, please?!

Obviously we didn't die. But Lake Seminole gators are the stuff of nightmares, guys. Anyway, Colin checked that off his list so now we don't have to do that again.

Other than freaking out over alligators, I had an amazing birthday trip! It was so much fun to bring Colin along on our annual family vacation and to introduce him to Mexico Beach (not counting the one day we spent there in pouring rain three years ago). It was fun having Rebecca and Peter there to hang out with. And, of course, it was fun to take eight days off work to work hard at beachbumming.