I didn’t always love the endless days spent at the beach. For us, living by the beach meant every weekend in the summer was spent at the beach- and not just an hour here or there. I’m talking all day long, bring a tent, bring all the chairs, bring two coolers, all the snacks, maybe some publix’s subs, beer, fishing polls, surfboards, umbrellas, literally everything and anything. Cause you were going to the beach and you’d get there early in the morning and stay until you were good and sun burnt. This was the 80’s after all.

And when you’re 13, you just wanna hang out with your friends and not do stuff with your parents. Kid Augustine will obviously not be like this. She is obsessed with us and only wants to spend time with us and even tonight, she told me that I was her best friend and that her daddy was her first best friend, which I’m assuming means like runner up in Miss Universe.

I digress.

In Kid Augustine’s short life, we have taken countless beach trips- from the shores of North Carolina, to the dunes of Orange County and the paradise inlets off Grenada (and obviously lots of time in St. Augustine) – ones where she spends a significant amount of time at the beach and she loves it. Like love, loves it. Like, she is totally happy spending all day on the beach, in fact, don’t even think about suggesting you leave the beach because she is not having it.

And I’m damn proud. I’m sure my parents are proud too, because honesty this is ultimate victory for them and pay back to me when I was a 13 year old brat who didn’t want to spend all day at the beach.

Kid Augustine loves surfing. She loves swimming. She loves floating. She loves eating hot dogs in the sand. She loves building sand castles. She loves destroying said sand castles. She loves pointing out sand fleas, less interested in them actually being near here . She loves sea shells, and she loves sea gulls. (She just learned the sea gull and is now obsessed.)

When I told her that I was going to save all my money and buy us a house at the beach, she said, “For me? Thank you.” My 2.5 year old just thanked me for a beach house. She also went into her cash register and paid for $14 dollars and said now I could buy it.

While we have figured out the beach thing, money is still something we are working on.