For the 4th consecutive year, I took the family with me for my annual workers’ comp law seminar at Saint Simons Island in southeast Georgia (I’ve gone every year since starting in 2004, save 2007, when I was in Iraq). This year was a bit different in that I had to fly down at 10pm (to Jacksonville, FL), since I had a meeting in Atlanta I couldn’t miss that ended at 9pm. The rest of the family took drove that afternoon, and I joined them in their slumber about 1:30am. We found a house right on the water, just down from where we stayed 4 years ago–a 2/2 that worked just fine for 3 young children and 2 adults.
The first day of the conference (Thursday), we all had lunch at Southern Soul BBQ, one of my favorite places to get bbq anywhere, and my favorite annual meal stop when down for the seminar. As they always do, the children enjoyed hunting for hermit crabs and other aquatic wildlife while watching the highest and fastest rising tides south of Canada’s Bay of Fundy on the eastern seaboard. I did some learning, some running, some socializing, and borrowed a hotel golf cart to get home at 4am one night.
Another of our annual traditions while at SSI is to watch college football at Gnat’s Landing on Saturday afternoon and get a picture of the children on the dog that stands just in front of the restaurant. Here is this year’s installment:
Unfortunately, the boy is in a stage that renders him unwilling to smile for pictures, but I’m hoping he grows out of it soon.
Here’s 2014’s version:
And 2013’s:
And the inaugural one from 2012:
Apparently, children get larger from year to year.
I hope to do this through their high school days, but I realize, realistically, this tradition will stop in a few years, as their going with me requires missing 2 days of school, and I have a feeling our eldest won’t wish to do that once schoolwork becomes more challenging, and activities + sports become more alluring than being at the beach for a few days with her family. However, I hope that day is far away or never comes at all, as I rather enjoy bidding farewell to summer and embracing the fall on the Georgia coast each year.