• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe

The perfect cure for beach-sickness (or what we did on our summer vacation)

July 22, 2019
By Rita Buettner
Filed Under: Blog, Open Window

We weren’t really planning to go to the beach this year. We had decided we would go visit my sister Maureen and her four children, who live north of New York City. Maybe we would make a few day trips from her house or spend an overnight somewhere together.Then Maureen heard about a friend of a friend who owned a house on Long Island. She sent me the link to the house, and I texted it to John.

The message came back: “Let’s do it.”

The house was just the right size. We could drive to the beach every day, and there was a pool in the backyard—and a swing set, too. We were sold.

When I saw my niece Elise a few weeks before the trip, she told me she was “beach-sick.” She was longing to be at the beach. Weren’t we all?

As it turns out, it’s hard for us to imagine a summer without a beach. In past years we have gone to Rehoboth, which we always enjoy. This year we tried something different—and Ponquogue Beach was lovely.

I was in awe of the natural beauty of the area. It reminded me of Assateague with its marshy spots for egrets and exquisitely blue bay. The sand along the beach was sprinkled with the biggest shells we had seen, along with horseshoe crabs and crab claws and seaweed and a long translucent sting-ray-shape.

We had stayed at my sister’s house on our way to the beach, and somehow we managed to leave all our dirty laundry there. When we arrived at the beach house and I realized that we had remembered brass instruments, but not most of our clothes, I had a feeling we were in for a memorable vacation.

I was right.

The children who had insisted on bringing their instruments set up a whole concert. They charged admission and then played 11 songs, each dramatically introduced by our younger son. They offered autographs after the concert was over.

Everyone enjoyed the beach, but our boys loved the pool at least as much as they liked the sand. They dropped into bed every night exhausted—and the grownups were right behind them.

We played Telestrations, which is my favorite board game for the beach, and we laughed until we couldn’t speak or breathe.

We read book after book after book. Elise, who is 12, persuaded me to try Lois Lowry’s The Giver, which I read and then we discussed together.

When we ran out of books to read, we stopped by a used bookstore we found near an ice cream parlor we just had to try, Candy Kitchen, which dates back more than 90 years.

What a vacation it was. We went fishing and explored the area and ate ice cream every day and swam and played and slept. We talked and talked, sharing memories and ideas about the future and lots about the memories we were making right now.

The last morning our older son asked if he could bring a book to the beach. He sat in a beach chair and read. It was extraordinary.

I found myself remembering all the times I’ve followed children around the beach, making sure they didn’t fall into a hole or fling sand in another child’s face or steal the green shovel every preschooler wanted or get swept away in the ocean.

Going to the beach used to be anything but relaxing.

We’ve turned a page in our parenting story to the chapter where the children can carry their own beach chairs and shovels and beach towels, and then sit with their books and read quietly in the sunshine.

There’s a twinge of sadness to that transition, but there’s also great joy. My son and I sat together and read while the seagulls hovered and the breeze drifted toward us. I thought of the young man he is already and wondered about the man he will become.

I wished I could freeze time, but then I remembered that so many times I’ve wanted to pause—when the next moment has been even more wonderful than I could imagine.

The sun rose higher into the sky, and soon enough the children were hungry and tired and didn’t want another dose of sunscreen. It was time to go.

The cousins wrote their farewell to the beach in the sand the way they always do, and we said goodbye to the beach.

There’s just something about the beach.

Goodbye, beach, at least for now.

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Rita Buettner

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

A loaf of sliced bread

We are part of the miracle

Question Corner: Do I need to attend my territorial parish?

The truth about transitions

A cry for unity

‘Public’ does not equal ‘state’ or ‘government’

| Recent Local News |

Radio Interview: Religious freedom faces ongoing challenges

ordination 2025 baltimore

Excitement and pride abound at ordination of five priests for Archdiocese of Baltimore

Pilgrims walk in the footsteps of America’s first saint

Juneteenth

Juneteenth seen as day to reflect on freedom, ending racism and Black Catholics’ contributions

Deacon O’Donnell’s ‘normal’ faith life led to priestly vocation

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Radio Interview: Religious freedom faces ongoing challenges
  • Pope leads Corpus Christi procession through streets of Rome
  • Excitement and pride abound at ordination of five priests for Archdiocese of Baltimore
  • ‘Slaughter of innocents’ in suicide bombing at Syrian church called ‘unspeakable evil’
  • Pilgrims walk in the footsteps of America’s first saint
  • Trump orders US attack on Iran nuclear sites, as Pope Leo, bishops plead for peace
  • We are part of the miracle
  • Visiting Upstate New York’s National Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs
  • Washington Roundup: Trump weighs options in Israel-Iran conflict, CLINIC condemns expanded ICE raids

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED