This Minivan is so sick, yo.

1. Reapply, reapply, reapply. After a lovely weekend with the girls at Ocean City, I came home Pepto-Bismol pink. The rest of my (equally Caucasian) friends came home in various shades of tan. Paul took one look at my Bozo nose and asked, "What were you wearing, a negative SPF?"

2. When you're in a mini-van full of tipsy mothers, expect to hear lots of Def Leopard and Sir Mix-A-Lot. There was one (anonymous) blogging mother who bellowed, "My anaconda don't want none unless it got buns, HUN!" at least thirty times. Funnier every time. (Total disclosure: there was a designated driver. She found us all hilarious, I'm sure.)

3. If you're from Maryland, all paths lead to Ocean City. Over the course of the weekend we passed restaurants, fudge shops, and bars that once employed these free-wheeling friends of mine. It didn't matter what hotel we passed...somebody, at some point had stayed there.

4. Ocean=God. How can you not believe in a God when you see the dolphins jump in the surf, each day a joyful discovery?

Of course, I recently heard that dolphins are kind of rape-y. As in, they rape each other a lot. I'm going to file this away as a crackpot statement, because, lest we forget, they are wild animals.

That being said, I'm bringing my Take Back the Night whistle if I ever go to one of those "Swim with the Dolphins" places. Hey hey! Ho ho! Remember, Flipper, NO means NO!

5. Wawa sub sandwiches are the shiz-nit (please ignore the wannabe slang today--I'm feeling silly). Wawa, for those not in the know, is a gas station. A gas station that sells salads, sandwiches, hummus, pizza, chicken wings, escargot, veal, sushi, and Ethiopian food. Perhaps I exaggerate a bit, but on the West Coast, one buys gas, and possibly a soda or a bag of chips at a gas station. Out here, you can do everything at a gas station except for perhaps a pedicure or dialysis.

But it's only a matter of time.

6. Sacred Marriage. I read the beginning of a book called Sacred Marriage, which states, and I'm paraphrasing here, that marriage is not the means to happiness, but it can be the means to holiness. Meaning: you cannot depend on another person to make you happy, but you can use the circumstances and learning experiences of marriage to become closer to God. Intriguing. I'll Amazon it (did you know Amazon was a verb?) and report more insights if they come...

7. It's good to have friends. When the sun is shining, the waves are crashing, and the minivan is blasting, life is good, and I am blessed.