Beach Bums

Arya and I are turning into such beach bums. For those of you who know me, this has to be a surprise.
It's no secret that I've never been a fan of beaches. All that nasty sand, super hot sun and crazy underwater animals nipping at your toes. And of course, there's always Jaws lurking around somewhere out there. Living in Georgia meant the majority of our summer (and spring and winter) vacations were spent at the beach. At least once a year we'd head down to Daytona and spend a week in what others called Paradise. I called it the 7th ring of Hell.
I'd spend the entire week curled up with a million books in our condo or hotel room. When reading got old I'd spend countless hours catching up on Spongebob and finishing off 3 family sized bags of Flaming Hot Cheetos. The beach just wasn't for me.
So, when we decided to move to Grenada I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of being surrounded by beaches on every side. I tried my hardest to convince Ryan to move to Alaska instead, but my Caribbean-at-heart husband wasn't having it.
After being here at least two weeks I reluctantly let Arya drag me down to the ocean. I was prepared to spend at most 20 mins tentatively stepping in the water and then rushing home to scour off every particle of sand. After what felt like 10 mins, I realized we had been there for an hour already. I chalked it up to a fluke and we headed home.
But, to my surprise, I've started to crave the beach! If we miss more than 2 days in a row I start getting antsy. How could I ever hate such a wonderful place?! I'm not quite sure what's changed. Maybe it's seeing how much fun Arya has (she swims like a little fish already!). Or maybe it's the beauty of the Caribbean beaches (none of those nasty jellyfish camped out on the sand). Whatever it is, I'm fully converted.
Since you guys can't be with us, we wanted to give you a little taste of our day. We get up early, get lotion-ed up (which the locals think is hilarious. Sunblock?? You're white enough already! Why block the sun?) and take the 5 min walk down to our favorite beach. We spend a few hours building castles and swimming out into the crystal clear water. I wish I was eloquent enough to describe it, but I think pictures would do it better justice:

Then, after we hang out on the beach for awhile, we head over to our favorite little pavillon. I's right on the beach. Arya swears the Sprite's there are better than anywhere else on the island ;)

My favorite thing about this pavillion? It's the only place I can escape the ever present Regge music. On any given day we can come here and hear country music (a true taste of home) 80s and 90s (but thankfully no pop!). I took a very poorly filmed video so you guys could hear the music playing in the background. Listen closely, it's a little hard to catch:

And Ryan? This occupies most of his time:

 But don't feel too sorry for him. He gets to do it here: