Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with the vacation recap
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Happy Friday, y’all! I hope you’ve had a wonderful week – especially those of you who started school this week. I’ve had a fairly restful week recuperating from our beach vacation!
Yes, the reason there was no Weekly Wrap-Up last week was because I was in a car on the way back from Florida. I’m sorry to be so secretive, but I’m not a fan of saying, “Hey, Internet, there’s not going to be anyone at my house this week.”
Y’all are all perfectly nice people, but you never know which not perfectly nice people are reading.
There actually were people at my house, but I also didn’t want anyone breaking in on my 16-year-old house sitter. That wouldn’t have been good. Josh’s BFF, Jordan came and stayed with all our creatures while we were gone. His other BFF, Ethan stayed a couple of days, too.
There may or may not have been a video of our dogs in which you can hear Ethan call Peanut, “Devil Dog.” I can’t imagine why anyone would say such about my poor, sweet baby – except, you know, he is a devil dog to just about everyone but me.
He slept with Jordan every night, but was back to growling at him as soon as we got home. He’s definitely my dog.
We had a fantastic time! It was my family, Brianna’s boyfriend, my mom, my aunt, my brother-in-law, and my nieces.
The vacation was not without its hiccups, including calls to two different doctors, a run to the Walmart pharmacy for a called-in prescription and the eye center for replacement glasses (the other pair is floating around in the Atlantic somewhere), and a poorly-chosen fast-food spot that made everyone sick. (Those of us who missed out on that particular adventure because we chose not to go ride go-karts for 7 hours were not sad.)
You know it’s a great vacation when you can still say it was great despite all the issues. The weather cooperated for the most part. We were afraid it was going to rain all week because a tropical storm came through. We did have some rain every day, but not all day – pretty typical for Florida.
It’s the first time we’ve been to the beach in several years (we think it’s been 10 or so). We had a blast in the ocean – just wading for me, but the kids did some body surfing on boogie boards.
There were dozens of sea turtle nests roped off, which was really cool. And, one morning when we got up, the beach was littered with turtle egg remains where some babies had hatched.
We got up early one morning to watch the sunrise. Everyone said they were going to get up. Half of us actually did. It was beautiful. It was cloudy on the horizon, so I’m sure a clear day would have been more impressive, but it was still worth getting up early for – despite the no-see-ums.
You actually can see the hateful little boogers. They were particularly fond of me, Josh, and my aunt. We forgot our bug spray, so for nearly a week I looked like I had chicken pox.
A couple of funny stories from vacation. First, two days before we left, Josh complained that there was nothing to eat in the house. He texted his girlfriend, and said, “My mom went to the store, but the only thing there is to eat around here is 5 gallons of sunscreen.”
Oh, that made my laugh. The life of a family of fair-skinned gingers.
We traveled in 3 cars. We all left to return home at the same time, but only two cars had planned to stay together. (Brianna, Andrew, and Josh rode in Brianna’s car and followed Brian and our carload.) When our crew stopped for lunch, my mom, who as traveling with my 3-year-old niece, texted to see where we were. They were still in Ocala – a good two hours behind us.
Later, she texted a second time to see where we were. The conversation went like this:
Mom: Where are you.
Me: About 30 miles south of Macon. You?
Mom: Valdosta. (For those of you who don’t know. Valdosta is the last big city in Georgia that you go through before crossing into Florida. Macon is in about the middle of the state.)
Me: Wow. How far do you think you’re going to make it today?
Mom: Valdosta. I give up.
It was probably mean to laugh, but I couldn’t help it.
The girls and I were very happy to get home to our fur-babies. The boys were very happy to get home to their cars. It was late Friday when we got home, so they did wait until Saturday to go for a drive – Brian in his car with Josh following behind in his.
It really was a fantastic vacation, though we’re glad to be back home. I took this week to recuperate. Next week, I’ll finally make myself do some serious school planning and we’ll start on August 21 – though our main focus that day will be the eclipse. We’re very near the path of totality, so we’re very excited!
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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
It sounds like you were had a lovely vacation. My husband was off last week, too, although it was more of a staycation. We went to the creek nearly every day where the younger kids swam and my older kids went disc golfing with my husband and oldest son. We were hoping to go to Ocean City, MD for a day trip because some of my kids have never seen the beach, but our truck doesn’t fit all of our kids, and we weren’t able to borrow my mom’s car as I had hoped. Sigh. Maybe next year.
Btw, your photos are fabulous. I love your family picture. Beautiful!
Thank you! We were concerned about travel arrangements this year, too. It took some shuffling, but we were able to get everyone down there and back, thankfully.
What a great vacation! I haven’t been to the ocean in around twenty years … I should take the kids eh? Glad you had a good time!
Sounds like a great vacation, even with the glitches. I never post details of events prior or during either, always after for the safety of everyone.
How lovely! And what fun to go with such a large group. I’m geeking out over those turtles, too!
Welcome back from your vacation! It sounds like everyone had a great time. Josh’s sunscreen comment made me LOL. I learned the hard way just last weekend about fair-skinned gingers. I had the three children in the backyard playing in the sprinklers for just over an hour. Older two (non-gingers) were barely sun-kissed. My 3-year-old ginger ended up with blisters on his shoulders. I’ll be receiving the “worst mom of the year” award this year, in case anyone was wondering where they stood.
Don’t feel too bad. You really don’t understand until you’ve experienced trying to keep a ginger from burning. My son went to Florida with a friend a few years ago. I stressed to the mom that he had to use sunscreen regularly. I should have been more specific – as in “make him reapply at least every 45 minutes.” He came home with terrible blisters. Ugh! Coconut oil and lavender work wonders on burns, should you need to know in the future. My youngest makes up a batch for her and her brother before camp every year, just in case.