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Holden Beach: Day #3




Another grey morning on the beach, but at least it makes hot tea taste better.  As the day went on we experienced a lot of erratic weather, a little bit of sun then misty rainfall, but it was another day mostly made for being indoors.  We spent some time outside in the early afternoon helping Grace realize her vision for a sand-sculpted turtle bigger and better than last year, but aside from that we were indoors for a lot of the day - so it's no surprise that the theme of the day became food from lunchtime on.



Katie came down to the beach trip for the first time this year.  And I love her.  And we already have nicknames for each other.  With a little bit of butter and a box of noodles, she turned out a delicious meal for me: sauteed mushrooms, red sauce and angel hair pasta.  Way better than the box of mac-n-cheese waiting for me in the cupboard.  We sat in the tall-backed rockers and waited for the sweet corn to cook, talking about siblings and high school and phone numbers with Grace's cousin, Emily.  Then I invited Katie for a walk on the beach just the two of us, so I could get to know everything about her.  We walked for an hour, sunshine hot on our shoulders as we walked toward black thunderclouds, the sky enduring an afternoon of split personality disorder.  (These pictures below were taken of the opposite ends of the beach only 2 seconds apart)  It didn't take too long to find out that Katie loves art and is a dancer; as in, her major in college is Dance.  How cool is that?  And she's fun, non-pretentious and serious about it.  And she talked about how she sees movement in everything, and we geeked out about being artists and Christians.  By the time we walked back to the boys' house, we found Dave waist-deep in the storm-swollen waves with a fishing pole.  He caught a small strand of snot-looking seaweed when we walked up and Katie pretended to sneeze it out; which earned her exactly one thousand brownie points in my book.


After the snot, we looked up and saw a neon-green cork bobbing out on the waves.  Apparently, Dan had bought a raft, a pair of paddles and a captain's hat and gone out to sea with Cynthia.  Yesterday Dan had attempted (and failed to) set sail in his neighbor's tattered wading pool held together by beer bottles and duct tape, so this was definitely an upgrade.  The goal was to row down to the 'Merica house for happy hour, but they found turning in a circle so entertaining, they spun for a while and then came back into shore.  At which point Cynthia mutinied and stole his proud vessel.


My dinner is a rather epic tale, begun by my manly man wrestling this beast from the watery depths.

Ok, so it's kind of a small beast.  But I stood next to Dave for an hour in the drizzly rain, running in and out of the surf and chasing after schools of fish rippling in the shallows, before this happened.  And I also learned how to cast; my next goal in life is to learn how to get farther than 5 feet out into the water.  But how exhilarating to participate in the process from start to finish!  After Dave unhooked him and dropped him into the bucket, he laid on his side on the bottom of the bucket, and we thought we had literally shocked him to death.  Until I nudged the pail with my foot and he came thrashing out onto the sand!  I laughed and laughed until Dave chased him down and plunked him back in.  From there, Dave hauled the bucket to the back deck, and as he pulled him out, his other hand holding a filleting knife, he hesitated.  For a few moments, he felt compassion for the life of the fish, having never intentionally killed an animal of this size before.  But he finally cut off his head (that picture not included for obvious reasons) and cut two small fillets for me.  Then we took them inside, fried them in butter and oregano, and it was the best damn fish dinner that I'd ever had.








After my fine fish dinner, accompanied by a tiny frozen pizza that Dave had picked up specially for me at the grocery store earlier that day, I headed back to the house for a second dinner with Daina.  More mushrooms, and broccoli, too, but now in a white sauce and with a glass of my White Zinfandel each.

And now everyone knows that I am not a wine connoiseur.  Moving on.

Daina and I sat on the porch and went through a couple chapters and discussion questions from Oswald Chambers' "Spiritual Leadership" book.  We talked about a good discussion she had with one of the girls in the house, how she felt about being more of a leader since 2 new girls are moving into the ministry house during the next 2 months, and how much she loves Pat.  I thought of how far a distance the past 2 years has spanned for her and my heart swelled with happy pride.  I love her so.

We later watched the parade of girls in our house come home from the "Mom Suit Monday" happy hour wearing one-piece swimsuits and over-sized shorts that all looked like neon triangles had barfed on them.  When I heard "suit", I had assumed more of a business suit when I was at the thrift store; needless to say, that shoulder pad-toting polka-dot flaunting high-waisted Sunday school mom outfit will never again see the light of day.  But I think I will have to keep my Christmas-themed mom shoes, just because they're too good to throw out.

Shortly after, Daina dropped me off at the boys' house as she went to karaoke with Pat, and I watched "The Godfather" as Emily knit the neck of her new sweater and the boys announced their favorite scenes.  I then went on a midnight walk with Dave, loving that we got to talk even if it wasn't of the most fun topics, and loving that I got to be close to him for a little while.  It's only been a couple nights, and we've only been married less than a year, but I do miss him.

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