Skip to main content

Vacation: Day One

I've been MIA on the blog again, but this time I have a good excuse...we've been getting ready for vacation!!  We're going back to Pass-a-Grille Beach just outside of Tampa.  Clay and Mandi are traveling with us, so we can't wait to spend some time with them.

Anyway, I hope you'll bare with me for the next days as I document this little journey of ours.   As always, I count travel days as part of the trip because when you have two little people, any day that is out of routine can seem like a vacation.  


We decided to drive though the night since it's a twelve hour trip, so Eric took a half day off of work and went home to rest.  Since the kids had been at my in-law's house early in the week, I had banked some hours at work so that I could head out early as well.

After paying some bills and running by the bank, I went home to finish packing and to get the kids.  When Mandi and Clay got to the house they helped load the car and bathe the kids while I took a quick shower.  Then it was a trip through McDonald's drive-thru, and we were on the road.


Eli and Ellie were champs and fell right to sleep, which was a huge blessing because I had only slept three hours the night before.  As luck would have it, I drifted off just as we were going through Atlanta.  All of ten minutes later the kids were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed thanks to the lights waking them up.

They ended up staying awake for a while and chilling out to the movie "Frozen" while eating snacks from the gas station.  Eli finally fell asleep again around 3:00 am, but it was closer to 4:00 for Ellie.  Ugh!  She was NOT on her best behavior and neither was I!



Mandi stepped in to help while I snoozed for a couple of hours.  Then I got up to keep Eric company while she and Clay napped.  At some point we stopped at Duncan Donuts for coffee, and we had to laugh because it was so hot that it melted the ink off the cup and burned Clay's hand.  Ha!

Around 6:30 we were all up, and now we are ready to roll in to town for our first day on the beach!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A New Decade

Happy 2020, everyone!  I know I'm a month and a half behind, but ya'll, January was brutal!  Not brutal in a tragic kind of way but in a "life will wear you out" kind of way. It started off with the flu...times three!  Eric, Ellie and I had Flu B and missed the first week back to school and work.  Then Eli was diagnosed with Flu A two weeks later.  Thankfully, my in-laws stepped in to help so that we didn't have to miss any more time at work. On top of the sickness, we listed our house for sale. The work it takes getting ready for market is just crazy. But we also have people coming in and out of our home at all hours and it's just kinda overwhelming. Plus, we are finalizing everything with the builder. In full transparency, working with the builder has been the easiest part! Maybe I'll do a little update on the whole building process later this week.  Now that the dust has settled on 2020, I'm going to try my very hardest to keep this litt...
1 comment
Read more

Running Through The Sprinkler

Playing in the sprinkler was on our summer bucket list.  To me it seems weird just checking if off and moving on to the next activity because when I was younger, we ran through a sprinkler pretty much every day.  Putting it under the trampoline and letting it keep all the "jumpers" cool, was a favorite pastime. I cringe now. What the heck were we doing with eight kids on a net-free trampoline anyway? Ha! Back to the present…Eric treated the pool yesterday, so we couldn't swim which made it the perfect night to drag out the water hose and sprinkler.   Neither child loved it at first, so we turned down the pressure.  They slowly but surely warmed up to it.  Bless her little heart, Ellie stood right in the middle and took a direct hit.  She would make the worst face you've ever seen then cry ridiculsouly if you tried to move her.  Eli ran straight though the middle with his eyes closed.  Thank goodness our y...
5 comments
Read more

The Best Is Yet To Be

My two grandmothers are 87 and 97 years old this year, which is pretty amazing if you think about it.  They've lived through the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, President Kennedy's assassination, the race to space, the rise and fall of communism, the advancement of the information era, the attacks of 9/11, Covid, and dozen other "once in a lifetime" events.  They remember when indoor plumbing was a luxury and yet know what social media is. They're amazing. I can't wrap my mind around the magnitude of what they have witnessed. They lived in real time what we can only read about in history books.  It's incredible if you let it sink in. Maybe that's why they're different...not just them, but their entire generation. They're not like us.   They don't give up when things are tough. They don't complain about hardships or the unfairness of life. They don't fold under pressure or cower when they face uncertainty.  They speak...
2 comments
Read more