A Pew All Our Own: Family Beach Trip

Wednesday, October 9, 2019

Family Beach Trip

Every year my mom rents a beach condo for a month during off season. Last year we went every weekend because we had a free place to stay for three of those weekends. However, this year the other condo wasn't available so we rented a place at her location to split with my sister the first weekend and rented a cheaper place across the street for the last weekend. The second weekend, no one else was going down there and Brian had three of the boys on a camping trip, and so the girls, Bob, and I went down and stayed in her place with her.

Judah was playing with his newest cousin, Savanna.

This was after Judah hyper extended his knee when he stepped into a big hole in the sand, under water. He was limping around a little bit after that.

Bob had a grand ole time playing with Turner. They especially loved trying to surf the waves on boogie boards. They would get all ready, standing on their own boards just outside of where the water was and wait for waves to comes and make them "surf." It was quite amusing to watch them fall off every time a wave was big enough to lift the boards.

One night we all went to a restaurant and took some pictures, but most of the time we ate at the condo so everyone could swim and play on the beach as much as they wanted. Hannah really doesn't hang out too long on the beach, she just doesn't like the dirtiness of it. She will swim a little longer in the pool, but still she is happy to hang in the condo most of the time.

Isaac was stung by a small jellyfish and Dylan was stung by a bee. Both Turner and Judah hurt their leg and were limping part of the trip. It was an eventful trip, but the most eventful moments involved Drew. Drew had had his retainer to move his upper jaw forward for a little over a month when we went to the beach. I have been super attentive with teaching him to be responsible with it and never take it out unless he's putting it in it's case either on the dining room table or the one in my purse. He's a pretty responsible kid actually for an 8 year old boy, but still this is worth thousands of dollars and I wasn't going to just trust him on this one.

However, all that said, I made a huge mistake and did't make him take it out when he went swimming in the ocean. It had never fallen out, and I figured "What could happen?" Well, one morning I took all the boys and Genevieve out to the beach ahead of everybody else. Drew and Dylan had gone out in the ocean as far as I said they could go to jump the waves. They come running in and Drew tells me his retainer fell out in the ocean. Wait. What. Tears immediately filled my eyes as I jumped up and tried to find the spot I thought they'd been in. They didn't even have the thought to stay where they were and call for me. The waves were so rough that whole weekend. I plunged my hand into the water and lamented. This is Corpus Christi, not Hawaii. You can't see anything in this water. I said to Drew and Dylan, who are standing with their mouths open and their eyes wide watching the crazy mom/aunt cry and panic, "There is NO WAY we'll ever find it in this water, and we don't even know exactly where you were." Then I turned to Drew and grabbed his shoulders, almost growling, "Pray to St. Anthony!"

I turned away from him and said aloud, "St. Anthony and St. Jude, pray for us!" and in the next breath, I stepped on something hard. No, it couldn't be. I reached into the murky water and pulled out his retainer. If that isn't proof of the saints being able to intercede for us, I don't know what is. We celebrated all day! It was amazing!

In case you don't know, St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost things, and I perpetually freak out and forget to ask for his prayers. St Jude is the patron saint of lost causes, and I threw him in there because this seemed like pretty much a lost cause to me. Plus, he is near and dear to my heart, probably because I tend to feel like lots of things are lost causes, pessimist that I am.