Nuestra propiedad

Ooh la la was named by our five-year daughter. It is a five-bedroom, four full bathroom beach house with a private beach-entry pool, pergola, firepit, and boardwalk to the white sand beach of Cape San Blas. There are two living rooms with large, flat-screen televisions, a dining area that seats 14, and a fully stocked kitchen. Three bedrooms have king size beds, one bedroom has two queen size beds, and the last bedroom has bunk beds that sleep 8 children. With incredible views of the ocean and the sunset are a third-story deck, a screened porch on the second floor, and a patio on the ground floor. Ooh la la is the perfect atmosphere for a relaxing vacation. Oohlalabeach.com

Vecindad

We recently built a beach house. I haven’t said that a lot yet, and it still seems surreal to me. Family, neighbors, and friends have all asked what made us decide to build a second home on the beach, and I can’t quite explain it to them other than it just felt right.

I can’t recall the exact moment my husband and I decided to own a house on the ocean – maybe it was while we were engaged more than 15 years ago and mapped out our life on a paper napkin at Pizza Hut… maybe it was during law school when we embarked on frequent road trips to the beach when we should have been studying so that we could wash our stress away in the moonlit waves and get our perspective back before finals started… maybe it was the day my husband and I spent all day at the beach with our then 4-year old daughter crafting the most amazing sand castle and finding in ourselves the creativity and imagination that we thought only a kid at the ocean could possess… maybe it was when we realized we actually had the finances to do it and the excuses not to just became pointless and empty…

So, it was easy to decide on Cape San Blas -- a beautiful piece of white sand beach with clear ocean water that changes color with the weather. If it sounds like the stereotypical postcard, believe me that it’s far from it. It is so tranquil there that there’s no static of reality or status. At Cape San Blas, there are real people who have never owned neon colored bikinis or fake tans and who would never settle for defrosted seafood at chain restaurants. It’s not popular enough for those kinds of distractions. Not when the water sparkles so brightly that your eyes instinctively squint and you have to run towards the waves when you step off the boardwalk because the white sand is too hot on your bare feet. Not when you and your family are the only people on the beach, except for the occasional couple who walks by with a dog that sniffs your feet and the older man in a collapsible lawn chair with a cooler and a fishing pole. Not when your cell phone can’t always get a signal and valuable beach gear is actually left on the beach for days without the slightest worry. Not when the church service is held under a temporary pavilion at the edge of the bay in the summer and you can go kayaking in that same bay afterwards to watch the horseshoe crab scurry away from your shadow. The only distractions at Cape San Blas are the ones we can’t find in our normal life.