Life's a Beach

Jake wanted a trip to the beach for his birthday, which was the 19^th of February. For the adults, that means an hour’s drive to a good beach, an hour’s drive back, and clothes and car full of sand at the end of the day. We put it off one week because of weather and dangerous conditions in the surf, but this Sunday Karen and I broke down and took Jake, Charlotte, Kaylah and Tylah to the Sunshine Coast. They had a great time. Tylah and Karen and Charlotte collected seashells, watched hermit crabs and so forth. Jake practiced his skim boarding, using one board for each foot at one point.

As is my custom on such occasions, I took the opportunity to take a nap. In my blog entry of 11 November 2006, I wrote this about an essentially identical experience:

This past Sunday after church we all went to the beach. The kids enjoyed it their way and I enjoyed it my way. My Sunday afternoon nap yields to no man’s worldly pleasures. And, okay, I know I’m overselling Australia as paradise, but I laid there under a warm, clear sky for 2 hours without sunblock and didn’t burn.

Well, the same two-hour nap on the same beach in February produced a very different result.

Everywhere that wasn’t covered is red as a beet. So, one lesson for the next trip is to apply sunscreen liberally the minute I get to the beach. A lesson for some future trip to the beach a few months from now is to start exercising to build up my stamina enough to spend more than 15 or 20 minutes jumping around in the water so I have something to do besides sleep while the kids are playing.

Back to the sunburn issue, Charlotte has the same weird superpower as her Aunt Janet. Her skin is as white as snow and she can apparently spend all day in the hot summer sun in a swimsuit without burning, tanning, freckling – anything. They both seem to be completely impervious to the sun, which is extraordinarily rare in really light-skinned people.

Obviously I don’t have that special power.

I’ll be preaching this coming Sunday about Naaman, the man in the Old Testament who was healed of leprosy. By then I should be peeling nicely so it should all work out perfectly. I’ll be my own sermon illustration.