With our adventure of a lifetime near the ocean ending, two things have left an impression on me: how sand gets everywhere and how fast metal rusts. There is sand in the bed at night, the floor that my wife sweeps twice a day, my eyebrows and ears, the dogs’ fur and the clasps of their leashes that no longer want to snap to a close. And occasionally when taking a bite of food at dinner, the uncomfortable crunch of sand ruins a good bite of Ahi, followed by my amazement that there is beach sand in my mouth.

We were lucky and had a two-week stretch of perfect weather – days like the one in this photo I took.

Any exposed metal rusts. The salt air and morning mist bring it. It’s everywhere working its oxidative magic in slow motion, hiding in plain sight. But it’s not just the metal it affects. It’s worked its magic on me, too, especially my desire to blog and be productive or read a lot.

I had big plans for blogging from the beach house. I thought it would be cool to write daily updates. But between the stress of the kitchen remodel and making last minute decisions on tile and flooring, two weeks of nightly Olympic coverage, and the intimacy of being in a small house with my wife and daughter hovering nearby, blogging has taken a backseat to all of this and the fun we have had in-between.

We filled much of the time with work, especially my wife. Friends and family drove here to visit, and I shared lots of little moments with my daughter at age 10. They aren’t what I would call big-event moments, like if we went parasailing – we didn’t. They’re the simple moments like the one the other day when after my wife took the dogs back to the house, and my daughter and I played soccer in the low tide, kicking the ball back and forth, skimming it across the water. Or we’d kick it out to sea and wait for the tide to carry it back.

Those were the cool moments when the stresses of life took a backseat to fun and nothing else but the actions at that very moment existed. I’m going to miss those the most when we return to reality.