Beach Blog: The Break, The Birds, and the tobyMac t-Shirt…

The Break

Ahh, the beach. With all of it’s sand, water and sun…nothing better than that on a warm breezy California Summer day…well, maybe ice cream…but when the concession stand charges $5 for a snow cone, you’d rather invest your money else where…

Where was I again?

Oh yes, the beach.

When the water is 55 degrees, let me tell you, it’s not the best thing to run out into like a fool and try to ‘adjust’. this takes a slow ‘getting used to’ process, otherwise you in the middle of the pacific ocean with your toes going numb.

Another helpful tip: don’t ever go by that the weather man says the waves will be. I watched the news the night before we left and he (or was it she?…) said that the waves would be no more than 3 feet high. Perfect waves for body boarding.

Or so I thought.

I’m 5’7. That’s closer to 6 feet than 3 feet. So when in the middle of helping my little sister body board and a humongous waves comes rushing OVER my head and throws me clean into the water, making me swallow a mouthful of salty ocean water--that’s NOT a 3 foot wave. My sister of course catches the waves and rides it…wondering why I’m coming out of the 55 DEGREE water dripping wet and screaming.

Skip ahead a few hours, the beach is packed now, there are so many people in the water that the waters temperature has easily gone up a good 20 degrees. I am finally out of the water for the day, laying on the sun, listening to my iPod and trying to get some sun when my sister comes running up out of the water:

“There is something in there!”

Mom sighs, “it’s probably just a fish.”

No more than 2 seconds later:

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

A girl in the ocean screams and runs out of the water, before long a massive crowd of people is surrounding the sand and people are shoving to see what’s happened. I finally get up to see the commotion:

It’s an octopus. Yes, and octopus. A purple, slimy octopus. Although, I argue that it was a squid…but let’s not get technical.

Soon a man takes the animal and throws it back into the ocean. Rumors start circulating all over that the octopus inked in the ocean and that a baby shark was in there too.

I never checked. And we all came back alive. That’s what I know.

The Birds

Birds. Several types and assortments of birds. They are like the rats of the beach but somehow they are cute and you like to chase them.

We had a group of summer campers invade our spot in the beach yesterday. No worries, there were a group of about 50 kids and they were all VERY well behaved.

It was the birds who weren’t.

The consoler of this camp decided to take the kids swimming and THEM have them eat lunch. As the kids wet and swam, the birds decided to have a feast.

Ripping into their lunch bags with their big ol’ beaks and sneaking the kids food and flying away with it. Good thing one of the consolers caught it or the kids would have been without food that day.

One family thought didn’t have that chance.

They went into the water leaving all of their food sprawled out in the open. Before the long, the birds were feasting on their Doritos and cookies.

I dropped one of my wheat thins in the sand and threw it to the birds--it took them an hour to eat it

Even birds don’t like health food.

tobyMac t-shirt

I could have gone all day without seeing this and I would have been fine. JUST fine.

I had just woken up from a taking a nap while lying in the sun when I look over and see that one of the people who had been sitting next to us had left and new family was coming in and taking their spot.

The dad in the family, was wearing a tobyMac shirt.

I smiled and pointed “check it!” I screamed, mom laughed. My sister and dad rolled their eyes.

This was a ‘Portable Sounds Tour’ 2007 shirt. VERY cool, VERY collectible.

I would really like to have it.

I wonder if he’ll give it to me if I asked… I wondered… At LEAST let me take a picture with it…yeah I know I’m a freak.

A the day goes on, I see this guy with his shirt and I then start thinking and he knows that I want it, because he starts carrying it around with him! To he water, to the showers, just throwing it around his neck like it’s no big deal.

Money!…I thought…I’ll give you $200 for that shirt….in an online payment maybe I thought! …Yes! This just might work. Wait…I think…$200? Really? The guy probably only got it for $20. Maybe I can give him $2 dollars for it…

I then see the guy use the shirt to brush sand off his chair

What?! Is THAT how you treat a collectable shirt?!

He then goes on to take the shirt and display it, Portable Sounds logo side up on the back of his chair for the whole world to see.

Oh yes…I Think…NOW he knows I want it and this is becoming a mind game. A jedi mind game!

As we leave the beach that day I take one last stare at the shirt.

As we leave I think to myself…I guess I don’t need that shirt today. I mean, just SEEING it was actually really cool!

So if you out there guy, and your seeing this, thank you for wearing your tobyMac shirt to the beach, it was just one of the many things that made my day. And I swear, I’m not crazy.

Overall I love going to the beach. Sometimes just sitting there as the sun is setting, looking over at the water and all of the sand reminds you of the creation of our God. How much thought and detail went into making all of it and how it was all really made for us to enjoy.

Looking at the sand also, reminds me of Psalm 139 where it says ’He thinks of us more than the sand’. The sand! You go to the beach and all you see is sand! You end up taking at least a good 2 pounds of sand home with you as well…but still, He thinks of us that way. More than every single tiny grain of sand.

And when you think about that, you can’t help but say ‘thank you God.’