baby you're a firework

When the boy and I moved to Wilmington, we looked for houses all over.  We looked in neighborhoods, we looked downtown, we looked at the beach.  And at the end of the day, we were stuck between two houses.  One being my dream house and the other being the boys.  My dream house was a charming craftsman style cottage nestled in this downtown neighborhood.  It had a white picket fence, a dreamy little backyard, a front porch swing, and big red front door.  The boy's pick was way out in Carolina Beach.  It had great ocean views, tons of space...but it didn't have a yard.  And we have dogs.  Wild animal dogs with needs for great big open spaces.

I love the boy a lot.  So I let him win the battle.  We moved into his dream house.  And I have to admit, he was right.  As much as I still love the idea of a charming little cottage, my heart needs to be near the ocean so much more.  I love that we can sleep with our windows open, just to hear the  crashing waves.  I love that we can host our friends & family for long weekends.  I love that the town comes alive in the summer.

And our wild animal dogs have survived just fine, partly due to the fact that there is a park right across the street from our house.  They are spoiled rotten with our daily visits to the park to walk and to see (and not eat) the ducks.

Now that I'm a professional bike rider, I love our little town even more.  Last night, we got to ride bikes to dinner.  It felt like a scene out of a movie.  Like all I needed was a little bike boombox, so we could jam out to "in the summertime" on the way to get thai food.  

Sometimes, the hustle and bustle of life just gets in the way of beach mentality.  I work, the boy works, and sometimes we just don't have enough time to just relax and enjoy each other-or the beautiful spot in which we live.  Stress, schedules, and to-do lists take over.  We forget about why we came to the house in the first place.  We overlook the sweet salt air and the magic of the town.

Take last night for example, the boy was downstairs slaving away on various work projects in preparation for being out of town.  I was upstairs watching junk tv.  We were in the same house, at the same time, and we were totally disconnected.   As I lay there, my heart longing for some quality time with the boy, the beach town answered.  I realized that it was almost 9 PM on a thursday night, and thursday nights in the beach town are the best for one big reason. Fireworks.

I yelled for the boy and he came upstairs.  For the brief moments that the firework show was on, it was perfect.  We snuggled up on the back porch, the salt wind breezing around us, the waves crashing in the background, and the colors exploding in the sky.  And for that moment, we were together.  The beach town, and our perfect little house, brought us together.

xoxo,
j