Somewhere Over The Rainbow…

Oz!   That is what is somewhere over the rainbow… and that is where we are staying!  All of the beach houses here have fun names.  Our house is bright purple with a rainbow that says "Oz".  The house is divided into two halves… Dorthy and Todo.  We are staying in the Todo side.  The house is wonderful.  We usually stay in a condo, but this year we upgraded and IT IS FABULOUS!  That is the ocean that you are seeing directly behind it.  Here is the view from the living room and front deck.  There are stairs leading right down to the sand. Those are my friends already basking in the sun…

The weather today was sent from Heaven.  I rolled out of bed about 9:00, moseyed out to assume my usual position plopped in a lounge chair drug down into the edge of the surf, and sat there ALL DAY.  Occasionally I would roll over like a good little rotisserie chicken.  No books… no Ipod… no talking… just sun, sand, and surf.  Heavenly!  The group of friends I go with on this trip are wonderful.  We only have one rule… okay, actually two rules.  #1 No one can invite anyone on the trip without first holding a group vote, and majority rules no matter what. #2 No one has to do anything they don’t want to do.  All feelings are thrown out the door and we just do what ever makes us happy.  If we all want to go to the same place to eat and two people veto, they can just take the car and go where ever they want.  If three people want to go to the movies, and four of us want to go shopping (notice I am including myself in the shopping group) no one gets their feelings hurt, we just go separate ways.  We all spend three days lounging around and enjoying not having to make anyone else happy.  It’s great.  Every Mother/Wife should have a once a year weekend get-away like this.  I spend most of my days in Iowa working at being Otey’s wife and Cooper’s Mom, not really having my own "thing"… it’s so refreshing to just be Kathy for a couple of days.  No thinking about what Cooper is going to eat for dinner, if Louie has been fed that day, if Otey has clean socks in the dresser.  Don’t get me wrong, I miss Otey like crazy and am calling three times a day just to see what Cooper’s doing, but I already feel like I’m ready to go home and be a better spouse and mother.  It’s just a great refresher.  More on the beach tomorrow… it’s supposed to rain part of the day, so that could mean some quality shopping time!