Southern Lovin': Update on our Vacation, Etc.

Hey y’all! Sorry I haven’t blogged in quite a while. I’ve been busy, busy, busy ever since we got back from vacation!

Back in the late spring, John and I had been talking (again) about selling our house and moving closer to John’s work. We’ve talked about selling many times in the past – we’ll sell this year… in five years… no, next year…, no, we’ll stick it out another three years… ok, next summer…. Well, while we were on vacation we finally decided that we were both ready to go ahead and move this year. We’d both been praying about it, asking for God’s guidance and both felt that we were getting the same word. So, as soon as we got home I started making phone calls to real estate agents, staging companies, moving companies, storage companies, handy-man services, flooring repair companies and starting to de-clutter our home (and Oh My Gosh do we ever have clutter!!). Jared also just started Awanas club and preschool. I’ve been attending the teacher training sessions for each of the three MOPS programs that I’ll be working childcare for this year. I’ll be a Discussion Group Leader for the Night MOPS program that I’ll be a member of this year and have been trying to learn what I missed during a meeting I was out of town for. I need to make about 10-15 phone calls for that. I’m the president of our homeowners association and on the social committee. We’re trying to join a new small group through our church (so I'm trying to find a babysitter) and I’ll be joining a new bible study group on Wednesdays while Jared’s at Awanas… so… I’m having a hard time keeping my head on straight right now!! And I have SO much packing and cleaning to do that I don’t know where to start!

Now, having said all that, let me back up a little. Our family photos taken before we left town turned out great! The kids did beautifully! The photographer was very good with them. He and the guy who helped us pick out our selections were Great – especially considering how late we were (John couldn’t get out of work as early as he’d hoped and traffic was bad). We ended up picking our selections after their closing hours and left the mall when all of the stores were turning off their lights! But they were so patient with us with whole time! I’ll see if I can scan in the photos later. We don’t have a scanner but I can go to the UPS store around the corner and get that done when I have time (???).

As far as our family vacation…. We stayed at a time share on Singer Island in Florida in the same place as John’s dad, step-mom and three sisters. Our rooms were not facing the ocean like I usually “require” for a beach vacation but that turned out to be perfectly fine. Our room was less than 10 feet from the poolside – if you walked out of our door and didn’t turn you’d fall in! The kids had a blast swimming constantly. We were able to sit and relax at the tables in the shade, talking with family, watching the kids and listening to the baby monitor which easily picked up in our room while the baby slept – SOOO much better than if we had been trapped in our room while she napped or if we'd had to torture her (and us) by keeping her up and out with us when she was tired. This also turned out to be a real blessing when our 2 yr old popped up out of the water and yelling “POOPY!!!” and needed to run to the potty! I was so glad we weren’t in some high-rise where we had to search for a potty or worry about packing up ALL of our stuff to make the trek to and from the pool every time. If we wanted something we just stepped back into the room to get it.

The beach was beautiful!!! From our room, you walked through this beautifully landscaped path with trees and bushes and then down a sandy path through the sand dunes. It was so beautiful! This was also the time of year that the sea turtles were hatching. Scattered all up and down the beach were sea turtle nests that had been marked off with caution tape so that people wouldn’t disturb them. Unfortunately when the little babies are born at night, they all too often get confused by the street and building lights and head back up the beach towards the hotels rather than out to the water. So we had several exciting trips out to the ocean whenever someone found a baby turtle by the hotel. I also joined several of John’s relatives one morning as they went out for their daily sunrise walk and watched as a volunteer dug out the rest of a nest that had hatched the night before. She dug out the remaining babies that hadn’t made it out yet (still alive), counted those babies who didn’t survive, counted the remaining unhatched eggs, and counted all of the hatched eggs to determine how many babies made it out of the nest. The baby turtles were so cute as they worked they way to the water!

I think the best thing about the entire vacation was being able to be with family for the whole week. It’s nice to have family reunions and gatherings but the time is too short. When you spend the whole week together you have the chance to really talk and hang out. All together there were 15 of us – the five of us plus John’s dad and step-mom (Frank and Jill), his three sisters (Lee Ann, Amy and Kelly), his step-uncle (Tim) and his two girls (Erika and Ana), his step-Grandma (Bobbie) and Amy's boyfriend (Matt) who joined us for a couple of days. Another great thing about family is BABYSITTERS!!!!!! Having family around at the pool allowed us to relax – more eyes on the kids. One afternoon my father-in-law kept the kids so that we could go out on Tim’s sailboat. (AAaaaahhh!!! So Nice!! I just sat back and relaxed in the sun and watch the view while the guys talked.) And one night, John’s sisters kept the kids while John and I went out to a nice dinner with his folks. Wonderful food, wonderful company!! Yep – family is GREAT thing!!!

Anyway, now that I’ve written a book – I’ll show you some of the photos!! There are just so many great photos it's hard to choose so here are LOTS! (click on the photo to view a larger image)