When inspirational posters go wrong

Have you seen this poster? Isn't it motivating? What an amazing story of bravery and survival, right?

That poster hangs in the gymnasium where my daughters have PE and lunch every day. So when I said, "Hey, I'm signing us all up for surfing lessons!" while we were in Maui, can you guess what ran through Amelia's mind? "I'm a fan of both of my arms, thank you very much. Surfing is not for me." And she could not be convinced otherwise. Since snorkeling occurs in the same ocean where surfing occurs, she looked at us with the same "you must be crazy" expression when Kolby suggested snorkeling. She was okay with anything in the ocean that allowed her to keep her feet on the ground (wave jumping, sand castle building, boogie boarding) but not anything that required a swim that would surely also involve sharks. You could just use your own damn arms for shark bait if you were so inclined.

Despite that, we had a great time with surfing lessons and our snorkeling trip out to Molokini Crater and Turtle Town. Amelia was a trooper and tried getting in the water at Molikini to snorkel, but you know when you were a kid and your mom asked you to get a can of corn from food storage in the basement and you'd be okay at first, but on the way back up the stairs you'd get that arched-back-racing-heart-can't-get-up-the-stairs-fast-enough-because-the-boogey-man-is-after-you feeling? That's about how her first, and only, trip into the water for snorkeling went. It might have lasted 1.2 seconds.

But then she sat on the deck and flirted with the completely adorable blond surfer boy who worked on the boat, winning t-shirts for herself and Madeline for saying Humuhumunukunukuapua'a.

The girls got an early Christmas gift from us--a waterproof video camera. They had a lot of fun playing with it in the pool and ocean (until I broke it surfing...luckily it was under warranty).

Learning to surf has long been on my list of things to do before I die. I can't say I learned to surf, but I did learn to catch a wave and stay upright on the board for a period of time.

But given enough tropical vacations, maybe I'll start looking as cool as Maddie on the surfboard?