Creating Fun

I mentioned in my last entry that i would show some photos of my kids last weekend. I have to say, I am impressed with their ingenuity. My sister and I grew up in New Mexico, and spent our summers in west Texas. While we enjoyed an occasional trip to the lake which was quite a distance from Albuquerque, or a swim in a pool when we got lucky (we actually lived in an apartment building that had a pool one summer, and I was the happiest kid alive) or maybe even a visit to a water slide and twice (glory!) a vacation in the vicinity of a beach, we didn't often see water. Not the kind you play in.

My boys went this summer to Viginia Beach to visit their father and spent a great deal of time at the beach. My seventeen year old was in heaven, and bought a skim board. A skim board is like a surf board, except that it is thinner and usually shorter, and very lightweight. I found this explanation of skimboarding online:

"Skimboarding is a sport similar to surfing which takes place near the shore. The skimboarder stands about twenty feet from the ocean with skimboard in hand and waits for a wave. When they see a wave they run towards it with their skimboard still in hand. Upon reaching the wet sand they drop the board and jump onto it as quickly as possible. Once on the board, the skimmer must remain as stable as possible and prepare to make the transition to the ocean. The skimmer then (hopefully) glides out into the ocean toward the oncoming wave, banks off of it, and rides it back into shore. There are many possibilities for riding the waves and this is where skimboarding gets really interesting."

(If you want to learn more about skimboarding, this site is a good place to start.)

So anyway, here's my boys now ... all excited about skimboarding, and living in New Mexico. Got a board with no place to go. Hawaii looms in the near future, but of course, being kids, they cannot wait that long.

So off to the backyard the ran, shovels in hand, and dug down into the dirt in our backyard which is probably 60 percent clay, and created an impression in which they dropped a blue tarp.

And then added water.

So all the boys, my own two and my stepsons, ran outside attired in shorts and boxers and proceeded to skimboard.

You need to see it to believe it: