Surfing Lessons in the Lake

If there was one way your could describe our house and our lifestyle, it would be SURF.  Josh has been a surfer all his life, and he just can't stop rubbing his love for the sport off on all his friends (and me too!)  Even though I've never stood up on a board yet, and have only been pushed into a wave a couple times.  This summer, I made it my goal to really start learning, so that hopefully I'll be able to fall deeply in love with the sport as well.  I figure that since I'm sure our kids are going to be somewhat extreme sports oriented, given who Josh is, I should learn some of them too.  This past fall, I started learning skateboarding.  This past winter was spent at Blue Mountain learning to snowboard.  This summer, is the summer of the surf.   And I'm not the only one 'signing' up for lessons.  

Step one: learn to master paddling.  Let me tell you, it's not as easy as it seems.  This past weekend we even got our little three year old niece, Jane, out on the boards, learning to paddle.  After her first lesson, we had a bit of a play on the beach, and she kept saying, "Uncle Josh!  I want to go surfing!  Please can you take me surfing?!"  I think she's fallen in love already.  Perks of being tiny?  You can also practice your balancing while standing.

Some of the best surf lessons have been spent with the sunset and with great friends.  There's nothing like watching the sky being painted with the most amazing colours, while gliding through the warm water, laughing with those you love.

Over the years we've accumulated our fare share of boards, and quite the variety of them.  Below is still missing 5 surfboards!  After just standing them all up in the corner of our basement, I had enough.  It was time to build some kind of rack to hold everything neatly in it's place.  Thankfully I have a talented husband who managed to build the whole thing with re-purposed wood, and save us a bunch of money.  The project cost us nothing!  Thank goodness for unfinished basements.  It definitely makes for easy building.

On Wednesday the forecast was looking good for some waves on the bay, and Josh was starting to get stoked.  After not surfing for over a month due to his shoulder injury, he hadn't gotten up on his board yet in the warm water, besides paddling.  After a long winter of bundled up surfing, dodging chunks of ice, getting to surf in his board shorts again brought out the ultimate stoke in Josh.

Here's a shot from his day on Wednesday.  (Sorry for the quality, it's a screen grab from a video.)

And here's a warm Dominican video from our trip in February, followed by another video Josh's usual surf attire, plus what his winter surfs tend to look like.