Pre-Thanksgiving Slumber Party Weekend

My sister's family came down to visit. It was a blast for the kids. We started the weekend at xbōs and they had a great time on the giant jungle gym and slides. However, the real fun began when we all came back to the house. We played on our own swing set, danced to music and read for the kids. The highlight for the children turned out to be right before bedtime, when an inflatable mattress became the nexus for slumber party mania. Lucky for us adults, they did eventually go to sleep. Mary, Long, Megan and I got a game of Cranium in. However, we all turned into bed during the first ten minutes of the post-game movie (Spiderman 3.)

Lessons Learned When Trying to Surf

Lesson#1: It's Possible

I was always thought surfing was beyond my physical abilities. If you ever met me in person, you'd know I was never in great physical condition, and I previously believed that the sport required more upper body strength than I actually had.

Well staying in Tamarindo (a reputable surfing hotspot), looking out of my hotel balcony, I couldn't help but notice how perfect the waves were for the novice surfer. Unlike the waves here on the Mid-Atlantic beaches, those Pacific Costa Rican waves broke gradually over a long horizontal distance (instead of crashing downward.) I thought what a waste it would be to visit this region without participating in one activity this region was known for.

So Megan and I took a lesson, and we both learned how to surf. We both stood up those boards. Our success was due to the lesson. There was a form to it, a specific way to go from the lying down/ paddling position to the standing position, that would have been way to time and energy consuming to try to learn by trial and error. Our instructor made sure that we could repetitively go through those motions on dry land before taking us out to the water.

Lesson #2: It's Significantly More Tiring When You Don't Have An Instructor Picking the Waves for You.

I wanted to retain this new skill so I decided to practice. I went surfing on my own the following day. During the first day's lesson, our instructor would tell us when to paddle and when to stand up. Without him on day #2, I had to pick the waves myself. That resulted in a lot of wasted energy, paddling for duds and missed opportunities. Overall, I ended up standing more on my second day than on the first, but a lot more tired from paddling back and forth. When that day was over, I could barely carry the board back to the rental shop.

Is surfing a new hobby for me now? Can it be another obsession like snowboarding? Who knows. By its very nature, the thrill of riding a wave goes by a lot faster than the thrill of a snowboard run, and for me that makes surfing more addictive. It makes me hungry to repeat the experience over and over again. Now all I have to do is find the waves to for that. Unfortunately, winter's coming. Whoa! That's the first time I have ever written that since I started snowboarding...