Summer Beach Trip 2012, Part III

Y’all, I seriously have no idea how many parts these blog posts are going to have. . . .  I’m just going to do what I can do one night at a time! 

So, the Thursday morning of vacation, as usual, Henry and I woke up before anyone else.  We drove to The Donut Hole to grab some donuts for everyone for breakfast.  Henry picked out the donuts for everyone, and he did a great job.  I usually like a lot of variety, but this time I was sure to get 4 of each donut.  I knew we didn’t want to face a first-thing-in-the-morning meltdown if we didn’t have the right donut for everyone.  Luckily, it all worked out just fine.

After that good, sugar-y breakfast we all got dressed up in our swimsuits and headed to the beach.  My mom had bought all three girls the most adorable swimsuits ever, and they wore them for this outing.

Everyone was very quickly coated with sand.  Seriously, the amount of sand that we accumulated during this trip is shocking.  I’ll be finding sand for MONTHS and months and months. 

Part of that may have to do with the fact that we buried all the big kids at some point during the day.

Penelope didn’t want to be buried, but she instead preferred to just hang out.  She was so sweet and so funny – and so sassy – during this trip.

I didn’t take just a ton of photos during this beach trip.  It’s just hard to watch this many kids closely on the beach and still take some photos.  Especially because I felt like *that* crazed mom (you know what I’m talking about).  I felt like all I did was fuss at the kids. . . .  “Stop throwing sand!”  “If you don’t stop fighting over that shovel I’ll take it and then no one will have a shovel.”  “Get back over here!”  And so on and so forth. . . .  After a couple of hours, Gary and I had all we could handle, and we told the kids to grab their stuff and we went to our car to head back to the condo.  On the way back, the kids were talking about how our time on the beach was “the best thing ever” and I just couldn’t believe it.  Seriously, were they in the same place I was?!!  Because that was not the “best thing ever” in my book.  But, as a friend recently told me, vacations with children are memory-making trips, and we did make some memories.  Although I felt crazed and out of control, hopefully my kids have a very different memory.  After our trip to the beach, we had some sandwiches for lunch at the condo then took naps.

That night we had dinner at Louie Louie’s (with Auntie Ann, who was at the beach with her parents).  Last year when we ate at Louie Louie’s it was a pretty . . . bad . . . experience.  The kids were just crazy.  We hoped for a different experience this time.  We didn’t get it.

In retrospect, I think part of the problem is that this year’s trip to Louie Louie’s and last year’s trip was on the first full day of the vacation.  Another part of the problem is that we had to wait almost an hour to eat.  That’s just a long time for little kids.  Then, on top of that, crazy things just seem to happen when we eat there. 

For instance, this time, Penelope had a dirty diaper that needed to be changed while we were waiting on food.  I am really bad at remembering a diaper bag, so I just keep a stash of diapers and wipes in the back of my car.  Well, in packing up for the trip, apparently Gary determined that those four diapers and 20 wipes were taking up SO MUCH ROOM that he had to remove them to make room for our bags.  So, there we were with crazy kids, a dirty diaper, and no diapers.  Gary made a run to the convenience station, but didn’t take any kids with him, leaving me and Auntie Ann there to deal with the insanity.  When Gary finally got back, we were seated to eat and I handed off Penelope to him for a diaper change.  He seemed pretty shocked that we weren’t treating him like a hero for tracking down the diapers – but he seemed to get over that a bit once he learned what had gone on in his absence. 

I could bore you with the details of the dinner, but I won’t.  Let’s just say that the kids were not on their best behavior and I was thrilled to leave (not to mention not happy about having to pay for the experience).  At this point I started to question our decision to even make this trip – but I’m very pleased to no report that was definitely the most trying day of the trip.  The rest of the trip was much more fun for all of us!

Then on Friday morning we had breakfast at the condo then headed to the pool.  The kids loved it!!!  Penelope especially.  She shocked us.  She was not that into the pool on Memorial Day, but on this day she would just walk up to the side of the pool and jump in, then come up dog paddling.  Amazing.  It made us just a tad nervous that she was that fearless – but then a little proud as well. 

After the pool, we noticed that Penelope had a bit of a rash.  I was a bit worried about her, but after talking with our pediatrician’s nurse over the phone I was pretty confident that it was just from her virus a couple of days earlier so we didn’t track down a doctor at the beach.  And that’s a good thing, because it was gone the next day. 

Auntie Ann came over and had lunch with the kids, while Gary and I went to our seminar.  The kids took naps, then had a snack with Auntie Ann.  By the time we got back to the condo (or “our beach house,” as the kids called it), everyone was awake and fed and happy.  We got everyone dressed and went to a family cocktail reception for our seminar.  Due to the rainy weather the reception was inside, but that ended up being just fine.  There was music and our kids and Cathy’s kids were running the dancefloor.  It was awesome. 

The only bad thing about the reception was that Gary and I didn’t get a whole lot to eat, but Gary made that all better when the kids were in bed and he made a bike ride to Acme Oyster House later that night to grab po’boys for the two of us.  Delicious.  A perfect ending to a very nice day. . . .

{ to be continued . . . }