Actually 19-Jun

Adam's blog:

I was the only one who went surfing today-- Jared and I went to the beach here at Santa Teresa rather than driving to Playa Hermosa as we'd done since Tuesday. We both scraped our feet on the rocks heading out. I only caught two waves in something like 90 minutes of time on the water. I feel a bit frustrated that I don't seem to be as connected and competent as last time-- though I think there are some other factors-- I'm not in as good physical condition as last year, especially as last year I was swimming regularly and doing yoga in the months before the vacation, and this time I'm somewhat distracted by the dissertation.

In any case, Jared had brought his own board, and hung out with me for a bit but then went to play in the big break. I eventually drifted North to the rocky outjut at the top of the beach and paddled in-- walked back to the home beach and went out a second time. After coming in, I found a rain-fed pond just inland of the beach, with some kids playing with their mom along with a few other couples. It will be fun to take our kids there tomorrow-- it's shaded and cool.

I tried to go back in a third time-- Jared left to take care of other things, but quickly banged my foot on a rock, and then got wiped out by a full wave, which turned the board over and I realized that the board was missing a fin. Day over. Marieke says it's not a big deal, but I still feel bad-- I shouldn't have gone in the third time, as I'm sure that's when it happened. In addition, it seems that someone made off with my WalMart crocs, including the inserts. I shouldn't have brought them to the beach, with no one to watch them for almost 2 hours-- as we were headed into the water I actually had the "well, I'll never see those again" thought, but decided to hope. No worries-- I have sneakers with a second set of inserts, so I'm fine, thought it was nice to wear the crocs around the house with the inserts-- last year when I didn't wear the inserts for 2 weeks my feet really hurt.

We had a much lazier morning-- no yoga, no surfing timeframe. The kids played quite well without their electronic equipment-- they had some sort of pokemon-jaguar family event going on. This was also our first day without anyone cooking for us-- we had no trouble finding meals from leftovers and the groceries from earlier in the week. We did go to the beach to play in the mid-morning-- the sun was blazing down and the waves were very strong-- we only stayed out about 30 minutes because I felt like I was already burning through my sunblock, and I didn't want the kids to end up with a bad burn.

Lynn and Marieke and the kids went into town-- Taran got a close haircut (for $4), and they picked out a few books and toys, as well as stocking up on water and groceries. We had a slow afternoon-- not even playing in the pool or going back to the beach.

Arguably the big event of the day was that I shaved Taran's head too! He was quite enthusiastic about it, have been asking all week to have it done. It took nearly an hour, all told, and used up a razor blade, but no cuts or injuries, and he looks cool. I wasn't brave enough to do a really thorough job so his head would be smooth-- he ended up with a 5 o'clock shadow, but he seemed very pleased, and kept running his hand over it (as I did my own 3 days ago). My hair has finally reached the fuzzy stage again-- if I'm going to reshave it I'll need to do it tomorrow since after that I need it to grow back so I don't surprise the Edinburgh faculty when I arrive again. As Gerry said, don't rock the boat anytime soon. Speaking of which, it sure would be nice to know what I will be teaching...

A big thunderstorm at the end of the day, after night had fallen. A huge thunderclap shook the house just as we were getting the kids settled in bed-- it probably delayed sleep by 10 minutes or so-- Kenna did seem a bit worried about the thunder. Now the kids are out, I've put aside the dissertation for tomorrow, and there's still no wi-fi access. Tomorrow I'll go sync up my Gmail and send the email to Stefan. Tomorrow night Chelsea will be back to make a dinner for the 5 of us.

A quick note on the end of the day yesterday-- Marieke and Jared came by to join us for dinner, including making the dinner. Marieke made meatballs and steamed veggies, Jared made baked potatoes (with a little advice). The dinner was a huge hit-- the kids ate absolutely everything, and Marieke seemed very pleased with how quickly the meatballs disappeared. She promised to cook again next Friday. We stayed up after the kids went to sleep and drank wine and traded stories about high school. It really is vacation.

We've been making more Garage Band songs-- Taran's goal is to make seven by the end of the vacation so that he can have an entire album. Then, as he says, he'll be famous!