the beach is my favorite.

Besides great mexican food, Whataburger, Casa de Tacos, the Alamo, & the Riverwalk, one thing I loved about growing up in south Texas was going to Padre Island.

I have come to the realization that after being surrounded by mountains in Utah for ten years, and having grown up with the beach my whole life that I prefer the latter. Although the mountains are absolutely breathtaking, and beautiful there is something about the beach that just transforms your entire being.
The sound of the waves crashing is pure tranquility, and it always puts my mind at ease. I feel renewed! 

I love going to the beach in the winter time, and if you're lucky you can be the only ones there. You don't hear music playing, no kids running around, no sound of jet skis, or the sounds of airplanes in the sky. 

All you hear are the sounds of the waves crashing against your feet (or in this case boots), & the seagulls happily singing to their own tune in the sky.

Living an hour away from the beach is heaven and I feel so fortunate, and grateful to be living so close again to one of God's most beautiful creations.

I will always remember the first time we experienced Spring Lake beach. The beaches here are clean, the kids that checked our tags on the boardwalk were super friendly, and overall the entire town of Spring Lake was community oriented.

It is amazing how harsh super storm Sandy was five months ago when she destroyed this area.

There were fenced playgrounds near the boardwalk and all that remains from these tiny playgrounds are twisted metal of iron. Sorry no pictures, too sad to have taken any, and I want to envision them in my mind as to how they looked like. Remember how much I love the playground!

This is a picture before Sandy blew off the boardwalk. 

picture via

And after...

Wow!!! It's hard to believe that the boardwalk is completely gone. All that is left are the cement pylons that is the foundation of the boardwalk, and Noah had fun standing on them.

The dunes were moved away from the the beach, and it looked like a ginormous pile of sand! It looks like they're cleaning up the beach pretty quickly, and hopefully it'll be ready to open this summer.

Even though five months have gone by I still get saddened by the devastation that Sandy left on these wonderful beaches in Atlantic City, and many areas in North Jersey.

I'm glad that we came here on this cold, snowy winter day to remember the happy moments we spent here on Spring lake beach.

And once this beach is back to normalcy we will continue to build some more memories.

Summer can't come soon enough!