The Miner's are on Vacation - Day 1

After an exhausting drive down yesterday and a good dinner last night, we made our way down to the to the sandy beaches last night here at Hilton Head Island for Nicholas to get his first taste of the Atlantic Ocean. This being his first time at the ocean we've been excited for weeks to see how he would react to it. It would have been nice to remember to bring the video camera but fortunately our digital camera can shoot some video so that will have to suffice. His first time in the water didn't go so well. He was only a few inches into the water and he was walking one way, the water was rolling back out and that sort of false perception about the ground moving under your feet caused him to loose his balance and fall into the water. It was actually very funny but the sort of thing you hate to laugh too loud at as he didn't find it as funny as we did. After some reassurance in the form of some chocolate ice cream, we would hope that this mornings outing would go a little smoother for him.

Nicholas was a little timid at first as I think all kids his age are, doing the typical run into the ocean and then as a wave comes his way, go sprinting back to the safety on the shore. It didn't take long though before he was venturing way out into the ocean, well maybe only knee deep but it's a start, I mean he can't swim yet so that's probably not a bad thing for him to be conservative. We had plenty of fun building sand castles on the shore and letting the water tear them down. I forgot how fun the beach can be.

Jen and I typically take beach vacations once every four years or so. I've come to think we have a long time in between visits because that's how long it takes us to forget how badly we got burned the previous trip. It was even so bad one year I even went to the emergency room after a trip to get treated. This year, we came prepared. SPF 50 for the little guy and SPF 30 for us. It's one thing for me to get burned but if Nicholas did then I'd feel even worse. I was a machine this morning and lathered us up 60 minutes prior to heading out, and then something like every hour on the hour afterwards just to make sure we didn't get toasted. I even stopped mid morning and made him (along with myself) put back on his shirt just to give him a break. I'm happy to say that all of our efforts paid off as we are just as pale white now as when we were this morning. Tomorrow, I will repeat the same procedure for him and probably cut back on my protection to try and get rid of this farmers tan.

brian