Two Dudes Surfing Some Tubes

One of the things I'm most proud of about this summer was the time Adam and I got to spend alone surfing the waves. He's no longer a baby and gone are the days when he was happy with sitting in the sand building castles. For hours on end he would take his blue inner tube and ride wave after wave into the shore. Mandy and I kept thinking he would realize he was getting further and further away from us, but sure enough I'd have to trek down the beach and get him to come back.

For the better part of two days that's all he and I did. Catch a wave, ride it in, catch another, ride it in....it sounds so simple yet it was so nice to spend those endless hours without having to scold him or threaten to take something away. We were just two dudes surfing some tubes.

On the last day of the trip, the ocean was the calmest it had been since we arrived. Barely any waves at all. As hard as we tried there just wasn't anything happening so after an hour we decided to head back to the beach. No more did the idea get out of our mouths then a huge wave caught us off guard knocking us both off our feet. The last thing I saw was him shooting out of his inner tube head first under the wave. As I surged back to the surface, panic struck for just a moment. I quickly caught a glimpse of his feet in the air and was on top of him the second he popped out of the water gasping for breath.

Reassuring him that everything was fine and he was safe, we sat there quietly making sure everything was as okay as we were claiming it was. Adam broke the silence with "Dad...I think my head touched the bottom of the ocean." "Probably so buddy. You did at least a flip or two." "Two? I think I did six flips!!" Pausing for a moment while staring off into the horizon, he then let out a long breath, threw up the high five sign and screamed "THAT WAS THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER!!!!!"

Again I was filled with pride and wanted to do my dead level best to make sure this wouldn't be the last time he entered the ocean. "You were awesome!!! Let's get out there and do it again!!" Unfortunately while there was no fear in his voice, he admitted that was all the awesome he could handle for one day. So there we left it. Just two dudes chilling on the beach after a long day of chasing waves sharing an awesome story. Really don't see how it gets much better than that.