The old 1970s song “The Things We Do for Love” ran through my head often last week. And while it’s a song about romantic love, my context was the love of parents for children and grandparents for grandchildren.
You see, we are not beach people. We enjoy looking out at the ocean and hearing the waves crashing while reading a book. We don’t particularly enjoy fighting for a bit of shade in a short seat in the sand.
We’re not really pool people, either. Unless it’s a perfect 70-80 degrees with a very slight breeze, in the shade, with a book.
But we are grandparents. And we love spending time with our grandchildren. And their parents. We’ve been wanting to take them on vacation for a while but hadn’t been able to come up with a time/situation that was good for them and for us. But knowing our southern California-raised daughter-in-law hasn’t had true beach time in several years, we suggested a Thanksgiving week trip to the 30A area of Florida. We settled on Santa Rosa, just a few minutes from the more famous Seaside. We even drove so we could bring Dolly with us.
I think Jeff and I spent more hours at the beach last week than we have in our adult lives up to that point because the girls loved the beach! One loved the waves, one loved the sand. Our son and daughter-in-law loved the sunshine and seeing their girls enjoy something new. The weather was great—mid-70s for four days—with two windier days and two lovely calm days.
But don’t imagine we didn’t enjoy ourselves, too, not only the time with our kids and grandkids but also the ice cream shops, coffee shops, and bakeries we frequented! We had an understated Thanksgiving day meal ordered from the grocery store but with my usual homemade pumpkin pie. And the Cowboys even won their game that evening. It was truly a wonderful week.
All-in-all, we’d do it again and again, even at the beach. Because our granddaughters loved it. And because we love them.
Is there something you don’t particularly enjoy but you do for the love of someone else in your life?
P.S. In case you are too young to remember (or have simply forgotten!), here’s the song: https://youtu.be/i-6PnsnBpQE?si=VSSQDC6PJUFszsMz
Oh, my word, we LOVE 30A and go every summer with my daughter and her family. What great memories we’re both making with our grandchildren!
This was our first time there and we enjoyed it very much. We spent most of our time on Blue Mountain Beach. And yes, the memories we are making! ❤️