No Day at the Beach

You may see the excitement on my little Twitter on my sidebar. The little note about going to the beach. Written at exactly 15 minutes before we got to the beach. And oh, what a trip it was. It ended in this:

We had met our friends at the beach which is about 20 minutes from our house. And when we got there it was oh, so beautiful. With giant ominous scary clouds in the distance. Florida weather is always so iffy that those clouds could skirt around you and you can be left to enjoy your beautiful sunshine. OR. They can sneak up and attack you in one-point-two seconds.

It's always such a difficult decision. If you leave and go home, those clouds could have turned into nothing and you miss out. If you go, you run the risk of hightailing it back to your car. So, we decided to chance it. I had the baby and Poops, and husband had all our stuff (cabana, chairs, cooler, toys, etc etc etc). And it was quite the trek from the parking lot to the actual water so we were looking forward to some relaxation and rest.

Poops played in the sand for about one minute before this really cold wind blew in and you could see the rain pounding the ocean just down the beach. And we thought, Uh oh.

Here it comes.

So I grabbed the kids and hightailed it back to the car. Husband stayed behind to gather up all our things to lug it allllll back and everyone on the beach began to scatter like little ants and we spent the next 45 minutes here:
Playing in the car. And waiting it out. Because see? Off in the distance was this!
Blue! Blue sky! But right directly over us was lightning and thunder and rain. How could that be? This is what Florida weather is like! Trickery! Evil trickery! We waited about 45 minutes, the kids had snacks and had a blast in the mini-van of all things, and we gave up the dream. It serves me right. I live 20 minutes from the beach and never go. Isn't that terrible? Anyway, we made a vow to go more because it's just so pretty.

Which reminds me: I went swimsuit shopping yesterday. How fun is that. I must have tried on hundreds of suits. I got all sweaty in the dressing room like I tend to when I am stuffing myself into apparel for hours on end. I tried on the tankini-skirt kind, the one-piece-skirt kind, the plain old one piece, and decided that America wasn't ready for me to not wear a skirt. Not yet. My stretchmarks are still staring me in the face, and well, there are dimples that need ironing out, so I got the skirt. The two-piece tanktop kind with the short skirt. The experience wasn't nearly as depressing and terrible as I thought it was going to be. It just made me want to work that much harder. Because just a few short months ago, I was crying in the dressing rooms because nothing fit. And now things at least fit. Kind of. Plus I can run three miles. Bonus. Next summer will be the Bikini Summer of Me! (Gotta have a goal, right?)

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Sorry for the late "winner" post -- it's been quite the busy day! But congratulations to ET @ Titus 2:3-5 who wins a blog makeover from Doodlebug Designs and a tee-shirt from One More Mile!!