Vacation part 1.

I know, right? You are thinking - "geez, it's about time". I mean, really - what have I been doing? Well, since I could write and entire post on that, and never get pictures posted - I will skip it!


So, vacation. I have to do this in 2 parts. 1 Beach, 1 other things we did. Notice the beach takes up 1 section. That should tell you how much time we spent there, or not. I forgot to take pictures when I relaxed too much. That and boy, the beach is sandy!!! Didn't want to ruin my camera!

So, here it is...Pure bliss!

Romping in the waves

Who will go first?

It's not always who you think it will be!

Building my new castle, so I can live on the beach : )

My kids and my nieces - working on my driveway...to my new castle.

Watch out Bay Watch, you got nothing on this girl!

"I really need to clean out the handle, so much sand!"

Beach Bum.

There. There are some to tide you over until I can sit down and do some more. For now, just know we really enjoyed leaving 100 degree temps for the 60s/70s we enjoyed on the beach. Did I mention we went to the beach a lot???

That time of the year...

when school starts and everyone at the stores are fighting over the last pack of loose leaf paper (until everyone realizes that they are bringing another box).

When the lazy days of summer are replaced by alarm clocks and routine. 

I hate this time of year.

I suppose that hate is a very strong word. I really tend to dislike the end of summer. The end of any break really. I enjoy break, a LOT :- ). I mean, I have a child of the age that I can utilize for a very large array of chores - what's not to like???

But there are more changes than school starting, but why don't we start here. (OH, and friends, I am still editing the vacation photos. I use "burst" mode to try to capture at least 1 decent photo in an array of 12ish, so, let's be patient shall we?? PLUS, I STILL don't have good photo editing software on my Netbook - but let's not start with that again...)

1. ADog is my new 7th grader. He's such a nice poser. Basically every "first day photo" since Kindergarten looks like this. Some have teary eyes, but this one doesn't. Same pose, same smile, different length of hair. He's good like that!

2. Then there is my new Kindergartener Agent P. Also a nice pose - however, not necessarily 'framable'.  All 5 I took look like this, or crazier. The kid was coming out of his skin for 3 days before school started. It's a miracle he I survived.

Agent P is in afternoon Kinder - but really, it's only like 3 hours. He rides the bus home with ADog and it is the sweetest thing!.

On day 2 of Kindergarten, he asked me why I was walking him to his class AGAIN. He KNEW where it was. I told him the school requires I do this, sorry. So he says "can't I just ride the bus to school?" So, now I don't make the 15 mile round trip journey, I let the bus do it. He just loves the independence - and it's all about him. (we won't go into MY feelings of rejection tho..)

3. I now drive a minivan. We knew we needed another vehicle that held all 6 of us - my sweet husband suggested the minivan. I personally was not a fan, but it works.

Pretty sure I was boon-doggled into this one.  I didn't realize that I would be driving it until we got it home and my sweet husband says "do you want help putting the car seats in there?". I mean we did trade in his car, not my suburban. Now the twins call the minivan mine and the Suburban mine. So sweet!

4. Our twins now sleep in toddler beds.

Personally I would have kept them in their cribs until at least 2nd grade, but one of my girlfriends is having a baby and I told her I would give her one of the cribs. So, since during vacation, the twins slept on the floor and that went decent ("well" would be overstating), we decided to bite the bullet.

Mini P has been ready for this for quite some time. We were waiting for Monkey and frankly, if I could have gotten away with him in a crib still, I would have. He is the worst at nap. While she stays in bed reading and goes to sleep - he plays loudly with trucks (siren and all), drops them on the wood floor, kicks the wall and gets out of bed for more toys. Yet, somehow, she sleeps thru it all for the most part.

Notice on the photo, where he has several letters from his name missing? Those were removed a few weeks ago. They are out of reach - so he must have used a book, truck or just banged the walls so violently hard that they fell down (and he subsequently destroyed them). Now I just call him "ike" :- )

5. I applied for one of my kids to join the circus. The Freak Show specifically. I'm sure Grandma would be super proud of this kid - but it is just wrong.

The question "why is he putting crayons between his toes" will just have to remain unanswered. Sometimes, there are just no answers.

Keep hanging on to the edge of your seat - vacation pictures will be up soon!

The ending of a great vacation!

I set out with a long, long list of things I wanted to do on this vacation. We were headed to San Diego for a week - where the 10 day forecast showed some sun and some clouds, highs of 70 MAX (we were averaging 100+ at home) and plenty of nothing (ok, the forecast didn’t show that, but that’s how I saw it).


I needed relaxation. I needed no commitments. No schedule. Just a bunch of nothing.

I got it!


We stayed up late, we slept in late, we sat on beaches and built sand castles. We played in the ocean, we had sand all over and we hated to leave. Really. I had tears in my eyes as we packed up. Last time I felt that way about a vacation was when I left Maui – and my sweet husband had to drag me by my flip flops. This time, I reluctantly went willingly…if you can use those two words in the same sentence referencing the same verb, that’s how I went.

Whatever.


I came home. Or at least by the time this is posted I’ll be home. Right now I’m the passenger of a relatively quiet minivan. Everyone is occupied with a movie or game. I know what you are thinking. I shouldn’t use dvd players or hand held games to occupy my children. I should be playing I spy or some sort of ridiculous game while driving thru towns that consist of a mock palm tree that are actually cell towers, dirt, sand dunes, and dead trees. Remember, it’s summer here and it’s unreasonably hot – like 176 degrees or something awful like that. Nothing grows and nothing is green. Except the signs that keep reminding me we have a long way to go.


Plus, they should nap soon. And until then, I’m going to let them watch movies and play games. Anything to make this torturous trip home more bearable.


Anyway, back to my vacation…er, uh, I mean OUR vacation! Even the kids thought we should be packing for the beach today.


I want to post pictures of my beach bum kids but I didn’t bring the cord to download (or is it upload?) the photos to my computer, so friends, you will have to wait. Trust me when I say, I will without a doubt post my vacation photos. I will show you all the nothing we did!


Until then, I need to end. We need to get gas and I need to put a bag of ice in the cooler. I might get one to hold too, it’s just THAT hot.