The Parr Family Beach Vacation

I am amazed to announce to you that the Parr family is off on vacation!

We have officially survived the last five weeks of our lives, and we have escaped Monticello’s gravitational field. Once out of Jasper County’s atmosphere…we headed for St. George Island, Florida.

As most of you already know, we usually escape to the mountains of Georgia for our time off. Not this year!

The beach has been calling us for quite some time now, and we needed a good sand and surf fix. We haven’t been to the beach for almost six years, so you can imagine how excited we are; we actually left on Sunday afternoon.

Monday morning we woke up to an unbelievable south Florida sky. The resort center where we are staying is actually on the water of the intercostal; so the 9:00 am view was breathtaking. We all got up and went to get breakfast.

The kitchen and family rec building is a short walk down the beach, and it also sits on the water with a pier that stretches out into the water. We brought a crab trap with us, and baited the trap for some harvesting after we ate. Next it was time to hit the beach!
The Island is only about 200 yards wide, so the beach was a very short drive away.

We parked on the road, and walked the bridge across the dunes out to the beach. Man, there are few feelings like the one you get from seeing the ocean for the first time in a very long while.
The only thing better is watching your children see the ocean for the first time; and we got to see the magic in the eyes of Sophie and Gabby.

We have never been the kind of family that just observes, so we got into the surf as quick as we possibly could.

I have to admit that it was un-nerving with all of the children being in the water at the same time; but a rotation would have proven to be a huge “parent fail!”

As soon as I got a handle on all of it I began to have some fun. We played for a long time and then we went back to the cabin for some lunch.

After lunch we did something that I have never done before…we went out to hunt oysters. This is so much fun!

The hardest part is getting used to walking out into the water where you cannot see anything at your feet; and where the sea floor is crusted with oysters.

Christian and I went out first, and we had a blast. We harvested about thirty oysters in about as many minutes.

Next, Julieann and Mackenzie went out with me. We found about twenty more, and went in with a total of fifty one fresh, huge oysters. After that we went back out to the beach.
BODY SURFING ANYONE? We had a bunch of “boogie boards” and decided that it was time to get gnarly with it.

I’m not really sure what gnarly means but when you start talking about the beach you develop a need to use words like gnarly, dude, radical, totally, awesome, and tubular. I don’t why, it just happens.

So like dude, like, little Sophie decided to get all radical on us and tweak out a totally tubular wave. She found her wave, which was totally gnarly, and she tried to take it to the shore on her board. Half way there she bailed, and the wave threw her into the surf with a gnarly crash.

When I got to her she was still head down with her feet sticking up in the air! I like totally freaked out! I pulled her up out of the water, and she looked at me and said…awesome! I did a flip! It was…gnarly!

We all took our tubular waves to the shore and felt pretty good about it. Everyone had a total blast in the water and were ready for bed by last night.

Today we had more of the same. We spent all day today at the beach, and once again…awesome. I just got done emptying the crab traps, and made Cheryl fresh boiled crabs for dinner.

Then I made fresh baked oysters for the family. …………….Sorry, took a break to eat a few of those baked oysters as I write. Anyway, we are now off to bed, and tomorrow…more fun!
Jason, father of six