I’m at my mom’s house for a few days, visiting. I don’t see her often and I’d love if she’d move closer to us, but for now I visit when I can, and I’m working on getting her to visit us more often as well.

Being here is a trip down memory lane, driving past my old high school, the neighborhood I’ve lived in or near since I was five years old, the house Ken and I lived in our first ten years of marriage. On this visit, I’ve been realizing something: while this town will always hold plenty of memories, it no longer feels like my home.

When we decided to move to another state, it felt adventurous — and scary. To make this endeavor worthwhile, we dove into life in this little beach community, and as we did so, it became home. We’ve been here ten years now (plus a few months) so how about a little celebration post?

10 Things about small-town coastal life

I enjoy, appreciate, and/or have learned many things in this decade of beach living, but when I picked up my notepad to jot a list of 10 things for those 10 years, these came to mind first and foremost.

1 – beach days with the kids

Whenever we’d taken a family vacation with the kids (or when we were kids ourselves), we’d almost always head to the beach. Therefore, the delight of how tired a good ol’ beach day makes a kid, and how absolutely conked out it makes them sleep, was not a surprise to us. However, off season beach walks and shell or sea glass hunting were a pleasant surprise.

Now that the kids are grown, I enjoy my own solo beach days.

2 – vacay time with grandkids

I love that our grandkids associate beach fun with visiting Grandad and J-Ma. The oldest is 10 so his first visit was our first summer here. With each child, the first beach-baby visit inevitably includes eating sand, and within a few years they’re jumping in the waves and trying to convince mom and dad to let them go further out in the ocean! Less-sandy vacay fun usually includes fishing, putt-putt, plenty of ice cream, and something along the lines of visiting the Maritime Museum or touring the Battleship in nearby Wilmington.

3 – running and road races

My dad was a runner, but the hills and the heat of Georgia gave me plenty of excuses not to take it up myself. For years, thinking of flat roads and sea breezes, as well as the high unlikelyhood it would ever happen, I’d said, “If we ever move to the beach, then I’ll start running.” Then we did, so then I did. I’m still slow as molasses but it’s been a fun way to explore the island and we have many great road races in the area.

4 – quirky yard decor

Fun fact: in our previous home, we once got an anonymous note because we had not edged the grass of our yard closest to the road. So the absolute quirk in our new town was a delight to me. A giant dog statue nearly as tall as the one-story house it sits in front of; lighthouses of all sizes made of just about anything you can imagine; huge metal pinwheels in front of a stately waterfront home; glass-bottle trees; and even a fire hydrant painted like a Dalmatian. It’s a hoot.

5 – my 100 days project

As I was noticing all that quirkiness, 100-Days Projects were becoming a popular thing on instagram. I decided I’d do one about our new town, and began to make a point of photographing those quirky things I mentioned above, plus many other fun and interesting things around the area. A local magazine contacted me at did a feature on my project!

Find my 100 Days Project on IG here.

6 – sea turtle nest parenting

Before we moved, my then teen Kathryn had already chosen to study oceanography and marine biology in our homeschool. Her love of the ocean, plus my formative years watching Nature shows, had us excited about working with the sea turtle conservation program. As soon as possible after our move, we began training as nest parents, and spent several years watching over sea turtle nests til they hatched, educating the public, and being just plain amazed. (But also bored; most evenings it’s not at all exciting!) I wrote about it on See Jamie Blog here.

7 – hurricanes

Not fun, but a real part of life on the coast. One thing that surprised me is the lack of spring and summer tornado-spawning thunderstorms like I grew up with in Georgia. We get rain, certainly, but if it’s not a hurricane, the weather is usually rather tame.

8 – learning to paddleboard

I’m not adventurous by nature, and I enjoy being near the water but not in it. So learning to stand-up paddleboard has been a big fear/challenging yet enjoyable activity. Of course I wrote about that, too.

9 – Island Water Rescue

We have all the usual fire/police/EMT rescue services, but near an ocean — and rivers and marsh and Intracoastal Waterway — there’s also need for a Water Rescue service. Ken has been volunteering in this way almost as long as we’ve been here.

10 – boating up river to breakfast

I spent many summer days as a child at the lake riding in my uncle’s boat while more adventurous relatives tubed or water-skied. But I’d never thought of boating purely as an enjoyable way to get somewhere. We’re lucky enough now to have friends who often invite us along to boat up the Cape Fear River to Wilmington just to go eat breakfast at a favorite diner and then return. It’s become one of my favorite ways to spend a weekend morning.

Here’s to loving where you live, wherever that may be!