Family and Sand

Just got back from a beach weekend with cousins.  What a great time! 

Random activities:

- Two different two-mile barefoot beach walks during two long stretches of good weather.

- An hour sitting in beach chairs talking and laughing.

- Some picture-taking from a rooftop deck.

- Grilled lobster tail for dinner one night.

- Looked at a hundred old family pictures during a thunderstorm.  I had not seen most of those pictures before.  Some included a fishing camp our grandpa owned that we used to hang out in as kids.  Others included our great-grandfather.  Wow.

- Grilled filet mignon another night, cooked between storms.

- Shared family stories.  I had one new one to contribute but they had several I had never heard before.  Parts of my family are a little scary.  The ones from Sicily.

I love the beach and I love my family.  I disconnected from most of my cousins decades ago, not because I didn’t like them … I definitely do like them … but because I moved all around the country chasing my career dreams and just sort of stopped staying in touch with people.  After turning 50 I decided to try and reconnect with people from my past and these cousins were the first ones I reached out to. They also happen to live much closer to my present home than the others so I do get to see them more often.

Some advice: 1) Stay in touch with family.  2) Walk barefoot in the sand whenever possible.