Quiet Weekends and Board Sports don't mix.

So, I'm planning on an almost perfectly quiet weekend of TV and rest. When oldest nephew calls up on Friday and says "Let's go surfing tomorrow!". I say to myself, "ah, why not??" So we decide to meet at 7a.m. at the usual spot at Bolsa Chica. Check the surf report and great, 1-3 feet, nice and easy, but red tide and jellyfish out. I thought to myself, it should be easy on my arms...

It's been about two months since my last time in the water and seriously about one year before that... and I'm wondering how foreign a surfboard is going to feel under my feet. So I'm excited and nervous to go that I only got 2 or 3 hours of sleep the night before the alarm went of at 6:00 a.m. The anxiety I felt while tossing and turning is like drinking 2 cups of coffee 1 hour before you're desperately trying to get some decent sleep. The insomnia compounds itself by the worry about whether or not you're going to be able to fall asleep or get enough sleep or fall asleep or feel tired in the morning or being rested toss and turn more fleeting thoughts...will I get enough rest, can I fall asleep, toss and turn some more... you get the picture.

Wake up, drive, in the water by 7a.m. Caught some decent waves, lungs worked great - arms got a bit tired early on and felt like jelly, but I worked through it. I ended up being in the water 2 hours catching what I wanted when I wanted and felt so comfortable that I was able to walk the board up and back with a bit of confidence. I also got my two youngest nephews up and standing on my 10 footer so it was a rush for them as well as me. It ended up being a big family affair with 3 uncles and 6 cousins showing up. I finished up with a fat breakfast at woody's, a 2 hour nap and some housecleaning that night.

Okay, so to add to my "quiet" weekend, my brother in law calls up in the evening and says, let's take the kids to the wild animal park tomorrow - Sunday. They also said they wanted to check out Etnies skateboard park afterwards. I said what the heck, I haven't skated in 5 years so why not?!?

The animal park was so just okay so I won't get into that other than I fell asleep on the tram tour and that captive Gorilla's live a good life. We were back by 5p.m.

The skateboard park was much more fun that evening. I picked up some new pads and broke out the old Tony Hawk Birdhouse stick. Busted out with my two youngest nephews who skated quite well for their age, but hey need to learn a few things including the ability to not get run over by the bigger kids. I was able to carve a few good lines and never really slammed myself into the hard concrete which was positive.

Now I'm seriously thinking of skating a bit more, but perhaps when the park is empty so I can try some bigger moves without crashing and looking like an a$$ in front of a bunch of kids... Finished up the evening with BBQ.

Afterthought: Boy I really miss surfing and skating, two things I've spent a lot of time doing - Skateboarding as a teen, and surfing all the time in my 20's. I'm going to dedicate some time doing those things a bit more although I'll never reach that same level of performance with skating. Kid's today are just insane (and according today's lingo "pull off some sick moves") and my body (at my age and weight) just can't take that level of abuse anymore.

Anyways that was my quiet weekend.