28 years ago.....

Tonight I was wishing my younger cousin a Happy Birthday on Facebook. As I was typing, I remembered where I was 28 years ago when he was born. I was in Panama City Beach, Florida. I was only 3 years old. It has to be one of my earliest memories. I can remember my mother talking on the phone. She was so excited that her only sister had just had her first baby. I remember her talking about how excited she was to get home and see him. The next time my aunt was pregnant..... I don't think we left the state...unless we were going to my grandparents 7 miles across the state line. My mother hated that she wasn't there to see the little booger when he was born.
Now 28 years later...he is a grown man, engaged to beautiful woman. It is amazing how fast the years go by. Sometimes I wish I was still 3 years old and was in Panama City Beach playing in the waves and the sand with my Wonder woman bathing suit on....or maybe my Strawberry Shortcake bathing suit. Those were some of the best memories of my life.
My brother and I played for endless hours in the sand and in the waves. He was my lifeguard. He would take me out so far on a cheap raft and we would ride the waves into the beach. Those times were so much fun. The funny thing is I never knew it was a cheap raft....it was the best. My parents would take us to a store to get a float or a raft to play with in the water. We always got a cheap one so that we could just deflate it and not have to carry it back home. I always got to choose which color I wanted. One year I got blue and my brother chose orange. I can still picture those rafts in my mind. One year he got a raft that looked like an inflatable boat. It had ropes around the side for you to hold onto it. It didn't turn out to be as much fun as the long flat rafts we were used to.
The last few times that I have been to the beach, I never see people in the water on the rafts. Most kids are playing with boogie boards. Man....they just don't know what they are missing. :)