Life's A Beach

Mark used to have a poem and it went something like this..."Family reunions, aren't they great? Spending quality time with the people you hate." We are at the beach with Sean's family and I guess that poem would be a little strong in this situation. But it betrays the essence of family vacations. The older we get and the more of us there are the harder it is to do a family vacation. When it's just the two of you then you can come and go at your own pace. When it's the 12 of you figure to add on 20-40 minutes to any task during said vacation. You are either waiting for someone else or you are hoping they'll wait for you...you start to the walk on the beach you wanted but are held up by making sure everybody who wants to go goes. You stand in line or you clean extra dishes or you have sand all over the bathroom. But then there are those moments when you remember why you went on vacation altogether. You are all in the ocean at the same time laughing until you can't talk because you are trying to brave the waves. You encourage each other to go further, you laugh when you bite it in the surf, and you hold on for dear life when you think the wave is too big for you. That's what life is like with families isn't it...encouraging, laughing, and holding on for dear life in the rough parts. Because in the end the memories we will laugh and cry about aren't the super long shopping trip at Safeway or who's towel was in who's way...it will be that one time we all played in the surf at Gleneden Beach in the summer of 2007:-)