Vacation

Things I learned on vacation:

1. There are few places that highlight the fact that Kids Are Evil as effectively as a cramped hotel room.

2. Car trips will henceforth require the wearing of compression stockings. Every time I drive on a long trip, my right knee hurts and my lower leg gets a little tight and swell-y. The other option would be to let mr b drive more but here’s the thing about that – mr b is Captain Sleepy. I’d have 16 nervous breakdowns per hour if I let him drive. So compression stockings it is. This saddens me, because it makes me feel old and broken and maybe I should just go out and get myself a babushka and some depends to go with my support hose.

3. My kids will fight about ANYTHING. Dear God, the stupid fights. I swear to you, the biggest fight of the week was over a turkey sandwich. Followed closely by a fight about cheese fry sharing etiquette. I was also lucky enough to witness fights over sand, beds, sand IN beds, whose hacky sack was whose, which beach ball was better, which beach ball Mr. Pants (our 16 month old cousin who stayed with us along with his mom – my cousin Lala) liked better, whose faceplant was funnier, ice cream, who messed up the Snoopy tattoo, television, Don’t Touch Me, who farted, who moved my shoes, and HE’S TOUCHING ME! Good times.

4. Diabetics should not walk on hot sand without shoes. Ten minutes after my dad arrived, he walked on the hot sand in his bare feet and ended up with 2nd degree burns on the bottoms of his feet. It was awful – all the skin came off the bottom of his feet and sand got in them. Several trips to a doctor, a couple prescriptions, six days, a whole lot of not walking, and a shit-ton of bandages later and he’s still hurting. It sucks.

5. I really need to replace my broken camera lens before we head to the mountains next month.

6. Finney of the beach photo patrol really, REALLY needs to find another career. Of the 10 or so photos he took, exactly ALL OF THEM were blurry. And I don’t mean slightly out of focus, I mean, so blurry that you can’t tell who is in them. Normally I wouldn’t care but due to my lack of photo-taking, I was hoping for something cute.

7. I need to start way ahead of time on Halloween, since the girl – upon getting Old-Time photos taken – has decided she wants to be a fancy flapper.

8. Old-Time Photo props will be used like every other item that reaches the hands of a child – as a weapon against their sibling. Fake drinks will be “dumped” on each other’s heads. Fake guns will be used to pretend to shoot each other. And everything else will be used to generally maim.

9. On one hand, the beach can make you feel really bad about yourself. On the other hand, the beach can make you feel way better about yourself. It all depends who is on the next blanket.

Despite the hectic and sometimes stressful days and the fact that I never got to meet up with the lovely Amy (because of all the hectic), I still had a wonderful time. And I am so very happy to that we are going away again next month.

I’m planning on the next trip being more relaxing. I’m not sure why, since the kids will once again be there. Plus mr b. Plus a gang of in-laws. So I imagine it will be more of the same – lots of fun, peppered with lots of potential stabification (that’s in the ICD-9, by the way). And since I know it’s coming, I decided to make a list of things that I plan to accomplish while in NC. If I can manage these, I will consider the trip a success, despite the stress:

1. Not killing anyone. No really – did you not hear the part about the kids and the husband and the in-laws?

2. Not dying. Because we have a cabin on a mountain. Which has a deck out into the mountainous abyss. And I will be drinking heavily. And most likely being driven slowly insane by the kids. Not a good combination.

3. Mountain geocaching! I’m very excited to try out our new hobby in an incredibly beautiful setting. I need to stock up on some burgh-related items for trading.

4. Not getting killed/eaten/mauled by a bear. Why on earth would I be worried about this? Well, see my previous item : 1) Geocaching takes place in the woods, 2) Bears live in the woods, 3) I am delicious. To combat the chances of getting killed/eaten/mauled, I’ll be wearing my bells, an anti-bear helmet (which doesn’t exist in reality but in my imagination involves tin foil, hot glue and pebbles. And sometimes – disturbingly – raw meat) and a t-shirt says “I taste like shit.”

5. I also plan on making mr b build a shelter to prove his manly worth. And because of the aforementioned bears, I’ve decided that the shelter must have a security system, indoor plumbing and a chik-fil-a (I know – they aren’t open on Sunday, but he can hunt/gather me something once a week, I think). Aw, who am I kidding? I’d be dead. He’s city boy. Years ago, we rented a cabin out in the woods for a weekend, and on a walk, I picked and ate some wild blueberries. His reaction was to nearly rush me to the hospital because “OMG, those berries might be poison!” I explained that they weren’t poison berries, but delicious blueberries and I was then subjected to 45 minutes of “But how do you know?? So maybe we’ll forget about the wilderness thing and I’ll just take him along as a bear diversionary tactic.