June 29, 2012

Hot fun in the summer

Well, not exactly. Why? Because it's too hot to go out and actually be able to do anything!



Yes, you are reading that right. At 6:15 pm, the temperature was 102 but felt like 105. It's probably a good thing I didn't look at this earlier in the day when those numbers would have been even higher.

We were supposed to head up to IL for a reunion weekend with a group of guys and their families that John went to school and played intramural hockey with at the University of Illinois. Unfortunately, I had a lot of stuff going on at work this week and we couldn't make the drive up for the weekend.

So, instead of hanging out with everyone in Champaign, I'll be spending my Saturday morning at work and then the afternoon at a baby shower for some friends. The rest of the weekend? I'm going to hole up in the house in the air conditioning and start the minor home remodeling/improvement projects I want to get working on. John's on board with what I've told him I want to do so far; I better make a list so he's fully aware of everything that's in my head that *needs* to be done. :o)

June 26, 2012

King of the Campground

Ever have one of those days? You know, those ones where you just kind of float thru your day, going thru the motions, but at the end of it, you can't really say what all you did?

Yep, that was me today.

Then, my dear, sweet, lovely sister posted a photo on Facebook of the view I'm missing out on for the next week and a half.

I swear she did it to torture me. For two weeks every summer, my dad gets prime real estate on the lake at Pymatuning State Park Campground. I usually try to take some time off work while they are there to take the boys up and camp, but couldn't work it in this year since we just got back from the beach.

We're also missing out on dad's first year as "king of the campground" in the new chair we all got him for his birthday.

Wonder if I can manage to finagle two weeks off next year to be able to go up there for the entire time?

June 24, 2012

Back to reality...for the kids

I love summer. I hate that I am cooped up all day and not able to be out enjoying various things around town with the kids. But, they've been happy this summer in that they haven't had to go to daycare (yet) and they got to to go the beach.


We got lucky in that one of my friends' daughters was interested in making some extra money this summer and has babysitting experience. So, for 3 of the 4 weeks of summer break so far, the boys have been able to stay home and be at the house during the day rather than having to spend the day at daycare while John and I work. It works out great since my office is less than 5 minutes from the house and John works from home, so he's in and out of the house all day. Makes them a little more careful of how they act, since he could walk in the door at any time without them knowing he is on his way. :o)


Things are about to change.


The next two weeks, the boys will go to daycare and they are not happy about it at all. But, we didn't want to make the sitter give up her entire summer to being at our house with the kids so that she didn't have any time to enjoy her summer break without "working." My checkbook will hate me for it, but it's a necessary evil since child #1 is not old enough to stay home alone yet, even though he thinks he is.


I'm also lucky in that the daycare the boys are enrolled in and have been at for about 6 years now does a "pay by the week" program for the school age kids over the summer, so I'm only responsible for paying for the weeks that they spend time there. This is what allowed us to create the schedule with the sitter to only watch the boys for part of the summer.


So, there's 6 weeks of summer break left and 4 of those will see the boys spending their days at daycare. I think it's safe to say that the boys won't be too happy with me for those 4 weeks since they'll need to get up and eat so they can be taken to daycare rather than being able to sleep until whenever they decide to wake up like they've been doing.

June 20, 2012

Vacation hangover

Yep, that's officially what I'm calling it. I need a vacation from my vacation. Next time, I need to make sure we plan it so that we are not coming home one day and going back to work the next. We definitely need a day in between to relax and get everything put away before we returning to our normal daily schedules.

This picture of Alex from the morning we left the beach pretty much sums up how we feel right now - ready to pass out!

June 17, 2012

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there.

I didn't realize when we scheduled our trip back in March that we would be driving home on Father's Day. As much as we didn't want to head back, we were up early and on the road by 8 to start the drive back to Memphis.

It was an uneventful drive (no idiotic semi truck driver sightings this time) until we got close to home. Once we hit Olive Branch, the kids started getting restless and excited that we were almost home. Especially Alex. Once we were about 10 minutes from the house, he was really excited. And showed it as only Alex can.

By dancing in his seat and singing "Sweet Home Alabama."

Um, wrong state there buddy. Maybe he's trying to tell us something and we should move out of Memphis and head to Alabama? We'd be closer to the beach that way, but that's just me being selfish.



June 16, 2012

Vacation, Day 5 - does it really have to end?

Sadly, our vacation is coming to an end, but it's been a great time for us. This is the first time that we have done a true "family" vacation. Most of our time off work is reserved for trips to visit family and/or friends, so being able to plan this week for just the four of us was a pretty big deal.

The boys changed into their "picture clothes" that I had packed and we headed down to the beach:

Of course, that meant I had to agree to a silly shot, which resulted in this:

Goodbye, Gulf Shores. Hopefully we'll be able to come back for a full week next summer.

June 15, 2012

Vacation, Day 4 - shopping!

We had some really nasty wind late last night and when we got up this morning, the water was really choppy and it was still pretty darn windy. So, I did what any mom who is worried about her children being in the choppy Gulf of Mexico would do.

We jumped in the car and went shopping.

Yep, just a few miles up the road is the Tanger Outlet Center in Foley, AL. With a Coach outlet. Oh, I've been looking forward to this for weeks. But, alas, I struck out in that store. I'm still stumped by that one. Don't get me wrong - there was a good selection and I saw several that I did like. But those, of course, were not part of the "extra 50%" selection that I was trying to pick from and I couldn't justify spending $200 on a purse, no matter what the original price of it was.

So, the majority of the shopping that was done was for John.

Yes, you read that right. I spent more while shopping buying things for the kitchen that my husband wanted than I ended up spending on myself. I think the best part of the morning was when I was in Coldwater Creek and Alex picked out a dress that he decided I just had to have. I told him I thought it would be too long for me and he agreed by saying "You're right. Maybe when you grow another inch it won't be too long for you and you can get it then."

Nothing like a little 7 year old honesty to make you feel even shorter than you already are.

After shopping, we made the hour drive over to Pensacola to take Alex to spend the night with his best friend who moved there from Memphis last summer. Joey had no clue we were on our way - think he was excited to see Alex?


That left us as a family of 3 for the night, so we let Anthony decide what we would do, which ended up being going to go drive go karts and play another round of mini golf. When we got back, we went ahead and walked down to the beach for a few minutes before heading to the pool for a little bit.

June 14, 2012

Vacation, Day 3

Today was more of a "relax and hang out" kind of day for us. We started the day with some sausage biscuits (Alex ate 3 - I think someone is going thru a growth spurt!) and then headed to the beach to enjoy the view:

It was a great morning and we spent about 3 hours on the beach before heading in for lunch. The boys spent almost the entire time in the water and making friends with some of the other kids who were out. While taking a break from the water, Anthony decided that he needed to bury himself in the sand:

After lunch, we took a trip down Hwy 180 to visit Fort Morgan, then headed back to the condo to just sit back and relax. Which, for me, meant doing laundry and getting dinner ready while John and Alex played a game and Anthony read the new book he bought to bring on the trip with us.

We spent the evening playing mini golf at Pirate's Island Adventure Golf (www.piratesislandgolf.com). John and Alex played the Jean Lafitte's Original Adventure course while Anthony and I took on the Blackbeard's Challenge course. The kids lost, so it was off to the pillory for them!

June 13, 2012

Vacation Day 2 - we've arrived!

We've arrived in Gulf Shores!! Here's the view from one of the balconies in the condo we rented for the next 4 nights:


Our day actually started in Mobile with a visit to the USS Alabama Memorial park to do a tour of the battleship and the USS Drum submarine. The boys had a blast and loved every minute of the 2 hours it took us to get thru the battleship. Even better? While visiting the gift shop on our way out to let the boys each pick something, Anthony decided he wanted to get a book rather than a shirt. The author of the book "Hell's Guest" - Col. Glenn D. Frazier - was there today and was doing autographs. The inscription he wrote for Anthony says "This book will help you over come any challenge."


After a stop in Foley to have lunch at Lambert's (because who can resist their throwed rolls with molasses and/or apple butter and all those pass arounds?), we made our way to the rental company office to pick up the keys, head to the condo and get everything unloaded out of the van before heading out to the grocery store to pick up the stuff we hadn't brought with us.


Once we were finally fully settled in the condo, we went ahead and got our bathing suits on and walked out to the beach. We spent about 2 hours out there tonight with the boys trying to see how many "waves" they could break. We'll be back out bright and early tomorrow morning to catch some rays!

Vacation, Day 1 (AKA – driving day)

The start of vacation was going well. Too well, in fact. I told myself I wanted to be out of work by 11:30, so I told everyone else I was leaving at 11. Then I set my out of office messages for phone and email at 10:45, or there was no way I was going to get what needed to be done, done. Left the office at 11:20, got home and had the car packed and we pulled out of the driveway at 11:55. Woo hoo! We’ve never had that little time in between me getting home and getting on the road. This was a definite first.

I should have known better.

Went to McDonald’s to pick up lunch and while waiting for the food, realized we didn’t pack any hats. So, it was back to the house we went to get the hats rather than spending the money to buy new ones along the way. Finally get on the road, and we have intermittent rain for the first 3 hours or so of the drive. Not horrible, but I hate traveling in rain. At least it wasn’t the hail storm that rolled thru town the day before, so it could have been worse.

I should have known better.

About 2 hours into the drive, I was getting ready to pass a trucker when he started swerving into our lane. I hit the brakes and backed off, and then he got back into his own lane. When it looked like he was set, I went ahead and went to pass him again. That was when John noticed that he could see the driver in the truck’s side view mirror and the guy was lifting weights.  And we’re not talking about a small 5 or 10 pound dumbbell here that can be bought at Target or Walmart. This was a good size metal weight like you would see in a gym.


I wish I was kidding.

So, I got back in the left hand lane and started  to slow down, hoping that the truck would pass so we could get the “How’s my driving” number off the back of it to call in to the company. And wouldn’t you know there wasn’t one damn piece of identifying information on the truck for who owned it except a name and location in small letters on the side of the cab. A mile or so down the road, the guy passed us again as we were pulling in to a rest stop. We talked to the security officer there and she called highway patrol for us while we took the kids inside so that they could start looking for the guy. Not sure if they ever found him, but I never saw him again. Hopefully he didn’t cause any accidents along the way.

 
That was pretty much the excitement of the drive for us. We got into Mobile and took the long way around to the hotel we had booked so that we could take the kids across the bay and they could see where the USS Alabama was before getting up on Vacation Day 2 to go there before heading on to Gulf Shores.