Summer vaca... final installment

(pt 6) It was a fun evening with dinner and family night and more cousins. Then we headed back up to Jacksonville for the last little bit of our visit. We went to the beach for our final day on Tuesday. This was by far the craziest weather of our trip too, well, maybe not weather, but certainly water J. The waves were very big and the undertow was really powerful (as in, enough to knock me down, when I was only about waist deep). We were especially glad Aunt Carmen and Caroline were able to come with us! We ended up spending most of our time playing in the sand, building a pretty terrific castle and complete moat-system, I really wish I had pictures of that one…

It was nice to have perfect weather for our trip, I’m almost glad to know it’s not that perfect all the time, or I’d be seriously tempted to move there J. We sure loved being spoiled by so many family members too. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, so we spent the rest of Tuesday making sure we were ready to head out fairly early Wednesday…

Now Wednesday you can imagine had the potential to be a pretty crummy day (all day driving, after a week+ of playing on the beach and such), but the kids did pretty well. We were also super-excited to stop in Alabama to visit with some old friends from Texas. It was very good to see the de Hoyos again, and they even fed us lunch! They have a ‘secret garden’ in their back yard, which is rather junglish, so they hack a path through every so often for more exploring and playing. Ironically, they moved right after we did from Texas to pursue a similar goal. We joined the Air Force, they (well, their dad) work for the Army as a civilian contractor, so we’re both in a military-frame. The kids only took a few minutes to pick up where they’d left off, I was glad J.

Wednesday evening we saw a gorgeous sunset that had the kids arguing for possession (we’ve been known to bequest pretty sunsets/clouds/etc on the kids… maybe not the best idea when they’re a little overtired or over stimulated… just imagine, ‘no, it’s my sunset!’ ‘I saw it first’ ‘I get the glowy part’ etc… is there an eye-roll emoticon I can insert there?!) I have to mention the sunset though, because I did get a few pictures of it on my phone, so if I can figure out how to download them, I can share a couple J.

That night we stopped at a grungy little motel that wasn’t quite all we’d hoped, but it had beds, and everyone was able to sleep, so the main goal was accomplished, and we weren’t at all in the mood to laze around the next morning, so we got a reasonable start for the rest of our l—o—n—g drive back through OK. For some reason, as soon as we crossed into OK the landscape got incredibly boring. I guess I’m a got a little spoiled with all the pretty greenery and life in the east. Thursday passed with reasonable boredom, but we were happy to make it home in time for dinner. And we were even happier to sleep in our own beds.

Thus ends our tale of summer vacation. And the moral of the story is, NEVER forget your camera on a family vacation! I’ve really got to get back in the picture-taking groove before baby comes J