I’ve had some memorable Spring Breaks in my time. And I realize that statement makes me sound a little like Ma Kettle fixin’ to get to reminiscin’.
In high school, everyone would drive down to the picturesque Crystal Beach, located about 45 minutes out of scenic Beaumont, Texas, to spend the week at various beach houses. We’d spend the day playing in the water and the nights trying to get the tar out of our swimsuits.
In fact, I believe it was Spring Break of my junior year that I almost met my untimely demise while seeing how far we could drive Corby Crawford’s brand new Ford Mustang GT into the surf.
As it turned out, not as far as we thought.
Then in college, I spent most of my Spring Breaks lying by a pool with friends soaking up the sun. We would stay there all day, leaving only to run to 7-11 to pick up a 64 oz. Dr. Pepper Big Gulp or perhaps some Popeye’s Fried Chicken.
Because what is the point of being twenty if you can’t eat fried foods and consume mass quantities of carbonated beverages while sitting poolside in a bikini?
After graduation, I became a reluctant member of the real world. And here’s something no one told me, there is no Spring Break.
If I’d had prior knowledge of this piece of news, I would still currently be in school working on my doctorate. I’d also be up to my ears in student loan debt because no way would my daddy have funded any more years of mediocre grades and above average social life.
When P and I began dating, he was on staff with Youth for Christ. Thus began eight years of Spring Breaks spent chaperoning 75-100 high school students on ski trips to Durango, Colorado. Ski trips that required me to take precious vacation time from my real job. Ski trips that did not involve air travel, but rather a bus ride to Colorado.
From South Texas.
If this doesn’t serve as confirmation for how completely head over heels I am for P, then I don’t know what does.
I don’t ski. I mean, technically, I can ski. I just don’t like it. All that riding up to the tops of mountains and then hurling your body down at full speed just seems foolhardy. Plus, I couldn’t ever figure out how to read the maps and would invariably end up on some Black Diamond slope wailing, bargaining with God, and trying to just slide down on my bottom.
Which is why I had to be retrieved by Ski Patrol on more than one occasion.
And why P will never ski with me again.
More importantly, I don’t do seventeen hour bus trips. Or really any bus trip for that matter.
But I did both every year up until the year I was pregnant with Caroline. Actually that’s not completely true. I rode on the bus every year, but on the last trip I chose to forgo skiing for spending time at the ski resort’s day spa.
I’m not sure about the kids, but I’ve never felt closer to God than I did during those two days at the spa.
Anyway, the last year the Campus Life ski trip existed, P took a busload of kids with just one other adult leader. I’ll never forget that year because a terrible blizzard hit right as they were heading home and I was so worried that I’d see the Daisy Tour Line bus on CNN News with a crawl that said “SPRING BREAK SKI TRAGEDY”. Because I am always calm and rational. And the pregnancy hormones didn’t help.
So, this past Friday, around 6:00 p.m., I said to P, “Just think, this used to be the time we’d be counting heads, getting kids on the bus and listening to them all throw fits about who gets what seat. Does it make you wish we were there?”
He said, “Just the thought makes me feel like I might throw up.”
And at that moment we were of one mind. One heart.
My point is that in all those years of Spring Break trips and leisure time, I never dreamed that a day would come where my Spring Break could be summed up by this photo.
Shoe department at Target. Bunny ears. $1.00 bag of popcorn. Child with unbrushed hair. Riding in the basket.
Oh, and that $1.00 for the popcorn also came with a medium Diet Coke because Target is running a Spring Break Snack Special for all the lame moms out there who take their child to Target for Spring Break.
Sweetie, we can always do the Cinderella breakfast at Disneyland, but how often can you buy a bag of popcorn and a MEDIUM Diet Coke for $1.00? Not very often in today’s precarious economic environment.
Close your eyes, hold on tight, and Mama will take this corner fast around the Crockpot aisle. It’s just like an amusement park.
We’re creating precious memories.