"It's hot in Savannah!"

The Gotham Wingards travelled to Savannah this weekend to visit Granddad Roy and Grandma Connie and the Kennesaw Wingards - Kevin, Angela, Kourtnee and Kamryn.  I should mention that it was hot in Savannah.  Like, really hot.  Hot like walking-into-an-oven hot.  Too hot for someone like me, hard-wired for the gray, misty cool climate of Seattle where 85 degrees in July is considered a scorcher! 

For Coco, the weekend wasn't about the heat - it was about the water.  On Sunday we visited the beach on Tybee Island where Ken and Kevin spent their summers when they were teens and where, more recently, Kourtnee and Kamryn have spent their days during their summer stays with Granddad Roy and Grandma Connie.  Coco was thrilled with the beach.  Beyond thrilled.  She made a bee-line for the water, with Daddy and Papa trailing behind her.  She stood in the surf, fearless, shrieking in delight as the waves rolled over her feet and splashed all around her.  (I fear that the bathtub at home, which seemed so big until now, will never offer her quite the same excitement as it once did.)

On Monday morning, Papa took her to her first official swimming lesson, courtesy of Granddad's membership at the Y.  I think Coco actually got her own membership card.  Coco was a little less thrilled with the deep pool than she was with the beach, and she was not so keen on the blowing bubbles lessons.  But in the end she had a nice time.  Afterward she played in the "Magical Land of Peek-a-Boo Waters" - a land she never could have imagined existed.

After this weekend, I see many vacations centered around water activities in our future.

We had a really wonderful time with the Wingard clan in Savannah.  I even ate crab legs for the first time.  Who would think that a boy from Seattle would have to travel to the South to crack crab legs for the first time. 

Coco and Papa in the surf

The Wingard Girls

The beach is exhausting.

"Wachulooginat?"

My first swim class wth Papa

"Are you kidding me with this?!  Who thought of this?!"

"Where did the water go?"

Country Boil