Category Archives: Vacation
Family Breakfast
Cousins at the beach
The Laundry Channel
Katie was entranced by the wash machine. She’s obviously never seen ours at home. 🙂
Good morning sunshine!
Clean baby
Gramma got jammie duty tonight…including socks since the kids’ room gets a little chilly!
More sibling fun!
I could just post the best of the bunch, but sometimes the succession of photos are fun, too.
Oh, and someone likes to pull herself up now!
Sibling fun
At the beach with grandma!
Headed down to the beach to play with his new remote control truck (a belated Christmas present from Aunt Marilyn and Uncle John). He was EXCITED!
Chasing the seagulls!
And then the shorts came off because they were getting wet.
Where’s the swarm of locusts?
So Owen was yawning today around noon so I asked if he wanted to go take his nap early…and he could sleep in my bed (since Katie was already napping in their shared room).
And he agreed!!! And I got proof he actually slept!
Except it only lasted 45 minutes. 😐
When I told Tom about it later, he said “WTF?!?!? I am looking outside for a swarm of locusts.”
Hee.
Today’s Outfit
I asked Owen what outfit he wanted to wear today and he pointed to this one and said “It’s what daddy wears!” 🙂
And being a ham:
Sunrise with Grandpa
Myrtle Beach!
Well, technically Garden City Beach, just south of Myrtle Beach.
It was a trip—so to speak—getting here, as I had to load most of the car myself in the rain and then drive the first hour in a major downpour…but really the drive was uneventful.
Hauling in the first of two carts full:
Then Owen asked grandpa David to go down to the ocean. Gramma Jean and I watched from the 15th floor:
Then I decided to be a good mom and go down and take a few pictures (since Gramma Jean could stay with a napping Katie). This is Owen’s new Aqua-Zooka toy!
Coming home:
Miss Katie crawling over and through everything:
Grandma Jean says:
It’s been chilly, but we’ve taken Owen down to the beach and he loves running in and out of the water, even though it is about 52 degrees. His little legs were RED when we brought him back in he first day! He had a smile on his face, so that was worth it. Grampa took him down the first day and was wearing his heavy coat and fur hat while Owen had shorts on.
It’s good to be home!
I honestly didn’t really miss the kids until we were on our way home…
And then it was pure awesome seeing Owen come running out of the house to give us both hugs! He was SO excited that we were home! And it feels like he changed a ton—his vocabulary and enunciation seems better and he even seemed lighter!
I hate leaving him, but I like the welcome home greeting we got!!
Car rental places are sleazy thieves.
Or at least the second-rate place we used (Advantage) was.
First they tried to force us to buy their outrageously-priced insurance, blatantly claiming our insurance would DEFINITELY NOT cover anything. (And the cheapest plan was almost the price of the car per day; their “best” plan was almost TWICE the daily cost of the car.) Needless to say we called USAA from the counter and were told we’re completely covered.
Second, they sold us on their pre-paid gas plan—which was cheaper per gallon than regular gas stations OR their own outrageous post-rental prices…but they never told us the details. (Granted, we didn’t specifically ask how it worked, but they should really explain it.) So what we didn’t realize until the night before returning the car was that they charged us for a full tank UP FRONT but neglected to tell us. So we thought only using 1/4 tank was a good thing…because we’d only be charged the lower price-per-gallon for what we used. Then I noticed there was a line item for gas…so figured we’d get a refund. But NO, we apparently had to return the car with a full tank (as we received it) to be credited, otherwise we bought the whole tank. Or we could have brought it back on Empty (to use the $50 pre-paid credit). Which no one ever told us. So when we were returning the car and asked about it, the rep almost seemed overjoyed to let us know we got screwed. I’ve never seen such a shit-eating grin.
Are all car places this shady? It was my first car rental—though Tom has rented for work a few times. And we were both shocked.
Group game!
This was most of the weekend group hanging out at the house playing Cards Against Humanity
Friendly Sushi
Our first meal of vacation was dinner with friends at Saki Room Sushi Lounge in Miami.
Oh. My.
We stuffed ourselves silly on appetizers, dinner, and dessert…all family style so we could try a bunch of things. Mmmmmm.
Eddy snapped this pic (and blinded us in the process):
OMG STFU!
The most annoying guy in the world was sitting directly behind us on the ATL > FLL leg of our flight today. He did not shut up from the moment he sat down to the moment we deplaned. I felt so bad for the poor lady sitting next to him…
He seriously had diarrhea of the mouth and jumped from one topic to the next—sometimes with segues, sometimes without. And it was all bizarro. Had I had an Internet connection, I would seriously have live tweeted the range of topics because it was unbelievable. I did briefly think about typing them anyway…but he was so annoying to listen to that I couldn’t wait to put my headphones on to try and drown him out.
Some of the topics included:
- His Italian family and how they liked to cook.
- How his dad once worked for the NSA and made $700,000 a year.
- How a friend invited him over to hang out once and wanted him to do marijuana so he’s not friends with him anymore.
- How he was a wrestler in high school.
- How his friend who was accepted into Harvard Medical showed him a study about runners and how /something or other/ was wrong with their feet.
- The difference between anaerobic and aerobic exercise and which is better to build muscle mass.
- How he went fishing in this lake one time and there were red-spotted tilapia and black-spotted tilapia and yellow-spotted tilapia and green- spotted tilapia and he and his buddies caught a bunch but no one wanted to cook any so they threw them all away. And there was an alligator in that lake, too.
- AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON. For two hours straight.
It. Was. Mind-numbing.
Owen’s Vacation Photos
I only remembered to give him his camera once while on vacation—and we were at Gramma Jean’s… I only found/remembered them now because I’m finishing the last of the unpacking (yes, you read that right—I hate unpacking).
3000 + 14 = 0
So…3,000 miles in 14 days (6 long days of actual travel) and I’m done. I think that was the last of our road trips for a loooooong time. I hope everyone got their fill of us!
Another lovely hotel night with the kids.
Katie was up at 1. Maggie was noisy. Owen was up at 1:30 tossing and turning and turned his turtle night light on. I was up listening (in case he had to go potty) and saw his light go off 45m later. It came on two more times (I know because I was up and saw it). Then Katie was up at 5:30. And then Owen had to pee.
GOOD MORNING!
😐
Use a flashlight!
Prompted, I’m sure, by us seeing a bunch of rainbows over the past day or two…
Owen: I want to see a rainbow.
Me: You can’t see rainbows in the dark.
Owen: Use a flashlight!
Katie, stop crying!
Katie is crying in the car. Owen says “Katie, stop crying. We’ll be at the hotel soon. Right over there.”
A few moments later: “Katie, it’s okay. The hotel is right over there….just a few seconds. Stop crying!”
Road Trip Rule #43
As soon as one kid falls asleep, the other one wakes up.
Owen barely ever sleeps in the car…so of course, not five minutes after he fell asleep, Katie wakes up SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER because, oh, you know, she’s STARVING after just having eaten 4oz 30 minutes prior.
Potty Break
Turnpike potty break…and ice cream break since the potty break was successful!
Destruction!
Owen’s skeleton’s arm came apart and he took it to Tom to fix it.
Tom: “Owen, what happened?”
Owen: “Destruction!”
Neither of us have any idea where that came from!
Reading with Grauntie Marge
Grauntie Marge wanted Owen to see where she lived, so we took a quick trip over to her house. She then gave Owen a present of a new book, which she then read to him.
Mama and Katie at rest
Potty Charts
Owen did really, really well with going potty on vacation. He only had a few accidents (only on an overnight or a nap!) but overall we were both really impressed. He even made it all the way to Michigan—two days and 18 hours in the car—without an accident!
He filled out two of these sheets while we were gone—one star for each potty, with him being able to pick a treat when each line was completed. He LOVED picking out the sticker and LOVED putting it on the star. He even tried to negotiate by saying “Two stars?”
A chocolate mess!
Grandma Jean was making brownies and let Owen lick the spatula. We made him stay in the kitchen (no carpet) but he still managed to get chocolate on the sliding glass door, the floor, and of course himself.
