I am SOOOO glad to be home! We took a very hurried and very stressful trip to visit relatives in the short amount of time we had. It started out as just a plan to go to the beach with the kids and meet up with Lance's sister and family there. We have NEVER been on a family vacation before, and so we thought it was about time to take one, even though with Lance's new business we can't really take much time to do it. SO what's better summer fun than the beach?
But we knew that the kids really needed to see Grandma "Cappy" and Grandpa "CoCo" sometime this summer, so we figured, "Why don't we just include them in the plans?" We figured I should try to see them before we met up with Teila and Rick at the beach. What's a few more hours of driving, right?........
Pleeease someone, tell me I am crazy before I ever try to travel hundreds of miles across 4 states, with kids, BY MYSELF, again!
Don't get me wrong, I am glad we got to visit everybody, but I am flying if at all possible next time. We decided to break up my trip to Montgomery in three legs. First stop in Houston with BeauNini in Houston overnight. And actually, although it is only a 3 hour trip from SA to Houston.....with two kids in the car and a very hectic start to the trip, tensions were already tight before we barely got on the road.
I had gotten very sick Thursday night before the trip so I was totally exhausted by the time we had to leave on Saturday because I had not gotten any sleep Thursday night. And then I ran around doing catchup errands and did laundry and packing on Friday. We bought a DVD player JUST before we left town Sat. and that was a headache in itself! Anyway, boy was I glad to rest at BeauNini's house Saturday night! By that time I already wanted to turn around and fo home...lol. But BeauNiNi made me a Margarita and we all sat on the porch swing, kids with popsicles and us with lemon margaritas, YUM!!!! Much better, thank you, Alicia!
Sunday was on to Teila's and an overnight stay in Mandeville, LA. LOVED the visit, and the kids were absolutely enthralled with baby Sofia! Rick is Teila's husband and we love him to death, too. GREAT MARGARITAS, Teila!!! WOW, what a trip, I got margaritas twice in one month! I'm lucky if I get one every few weeks!
We actually stayed there Sun and Mon night because we were just not up to driving the last leg to Montgomery yet.
Now mind you, the trip to Houston was supposed to be a 3 hr trip.....it took 5.
The leg to Mandeville from Houston was supposed to be 4.5-5 hrs...it toook a friggin' 7 1/2 hrs!
And I KNEW that the proposed trip to Montgomery, although it was supposed to be 5-6, I was looking at more like 7-8 hrs.
So mom decided to meet me about halfway, in Mobile and she drove back with Emily in her car and I had Blake with me.
MAN!!! What a difference it makes! Separately they are just a joy to travel with, but you put them together in the backseat and they can't stop making noise! "Mom, he said stupid!" "Moooom, he said Freak!" "No, I didn't!" on and on, he did this, she did that, stop copying me!, stop touching me!
AHHHHH! And it's bad enough having to deal with it when Lance is driving, but trying to deal with it AS I am driving is just a crazy maker! SO the visit with mom and dad and uncle Chris was nice, but too short and a little harried since we didn't really have time to just relax much. The kids loved the planetarium and got to get some good grandma-grandpa time. Chris and I actually went out for a margarita, too! I know how hard his illness and everything has been and we have never actually gone out together, ever. SO Lance actually suggested I take him out for a a couple of hours and just have some good sibling time. I really enjoyed it.
So, Lance got to fly down to meet us on the beach....lucky guy!......and he drove us back today.
We finally had our family Vacation at the beach and it was pretty hilarious, actually!
All this driving and work to get there and after like 1 hr in the heat and the sticky, smelly sand, we were ready to go get cleaned! It didn't help things that Blake absolutely refused to get near the water! So, he and I stayed up on the sand and he was happy playing in the sand. Emily and Blake had a great time. Lance burns very easily and so, even slathered with sunscreen, he was not too keen on staying out too long. Blakes skin cannot take too much either, although he did not burn at all, like Lance and I did.
So we went back to the hotel, and got lunch at waffle house. Good thing we didn't have to look to good to eat there, we were all exhausted already. We got cleaned up and went to tour the beautiful Beau Rivage, and what a beautiful hotel! I'm staying there next time, if we ever go back to Biloxi.......
After such an long day of adventure.....haha....we all needed a nap, can you believe it!? Me and the kids took a nap while Lance went back to Beau Rivage for a couple of hours. And then by the time we woke up and were ready to go to the hotel pool....it was hurricane weather! Lance brought back fast food for dinner, so we wouldn't have to go out in the weather. What a great end to a great vacation, huh? Oh well, maybe next time.....
Then the wonderful drive home......NOT! Let's see, we left Biloxi at around 11:15 and we pulled in to the drive at, uh, 10:53. About 12 hrs! OH...MY....GOD!!!!! No, really.....oh, my God! WHY, God?!
But I have to remember that nothing has fallen me that is not common to man, right?
Well, let's make it a little less common from now on. :)
So....I am very tired and very grateful for my own bed, old and lumpy as it is. I am going to stumble into it now....
Blog Ya Later!
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Hot SA Summer!
Well, I will see how I like this format for blogging. SO for starters, summer is already TOO HOT!!!
We have been having 100+ degree days already! It is usually in the 90's around this time so I hear, so that does not make me too thrilled about the prospects for our first summer in San Antonio as far as the weather goes. But fortunately the evenings are really nice here. Beautiful actually, at least so far, even with the hot days.
Unlike Houston, SA gets a lot more wind it seems and you get some really balmy, almost beachy feel in the evenings. If I closed my eyes I could almost imagine I am at the beach!
Well, I will be at the beach in a few days, actually. But it is definately a blessing to have the wind to cool off the days here. In fact, Emily and I got into the spirit of the whole summer patio idea and I took the little bistro table and chairs that was on the front porch and moved it to the back porch, since we never use it in the front. And now we can have dinner on the back patio or I can have my coffee in the morning and enjoy the watching the kids play in the back yard. At least there is some shade in the back yard.
I must say we had a pretty big back yard in the old house in Houston, but this one is truly amazing! Our home is on the corner lot, right around the corner from the elementary school but on a cul-de-sac street so there is no thru traffic. This corner lot is absolutely huge! Front and back. The True Green guy today said the front yard alone is probably over 6000 sq ft. No wonder it was so expensive when I used the sprinkler system last August! We were thrilled to have a custom inground sprinkler system and as we have never had one before, I watered the lawn a couple times a week for one month and BAM! What a water bill! I think it was something like $500. Really ridiculous! In fact, I got really mad and had them come out to check for a leak, but they couldn't find one.
So needless to say, I stopped using the sprinkler system. We had to cut up the bill over the last several months and include it in our regular water bill.
But now with summer here, it has been so dry here that everyone's lawns have been pretty brown, so I am starting to water with the sprinkler again, just sparingly though. But we could lose this beautiful lawn if we let the heat take over. It is just so big that we would have to have like 8 hoses or be constantly moving the water hose if I watered it by hand. This week I set it to water only 6-10 minutes twice a week just to keep the lawn from dying. So we'll see......
As I said before, Lance is moving the company into the Medical and Construction side of things, since it is so huge here. When he made that decision last week it has been freaky how things have been happening. The very next morning, what over 11 months in business?, a Dentist actually walks INTO the office, in his full scrubs, and places an order for an office administrator for his new office. He said he'd been dropping off his daughter at the driver's school just a few doors down and had been meaning to come in for some time and just kept putting it off. But lo and behold, Lance made the decision to focus on Medical Staffing and here comes a medical order! Then that night, on our date, our waitress turns out to be a pharmacy tech who just moved here with her husband and has been looking for something for 2 months. And her husband is also looking and he does something like Lab tech or something like that! Weird how God works things out.
Of course we know that once you really make up your mind to do something, many times the unexplainable begins to happen. Those little coincidences don't seem so coincidental anymore.
By the way, my allergists office called and said the scan of my sinuses showed that I STILL have a sinus infection! I just got over about of antibiotics for it and I really don't want to take anymore. But he has prescribed me one I haven't had before so maybe this will knock it out finally. I am going to have to really put together a regimine of supplementation with friendly bacteria since these antibiotics are wiping out literally every bacteria I have in my body, good and bad alike. My immune system is going to be shot if this keeps up. It probably is already.
But that is all going to change this summer! I am determined! Dream It, Believe It, Do It!
I've got to go now, I've spent too much time blogging today and I'm going to enjoy the warm breeze on my back patio with my sweeties. (Lance is out practicing his rock-n-roll again. They are actually going to record this weekend!)
Blog ya later!
We have been having 100+ degree days already! It is usually in the 90's around this time so I hear, so that does not make me too thrilled about the prospects for our first summer in San Antonio as far as the weather goes. But fortunately the evenings are really nice here. Beautiful actually, at least so far, even with the hot days.
Unlike Houston, SA gets a lot more wind it seems and you get some really balmy, almost beachy feel in the evenings. If I closed my eyes I could almost imagine I am at the beach!
Well, I will be at the beach in a few days, actually. But it is definately a blessing to have the wind to cool off the days here. In fact, Emily and I got into the spirit of the whole summer patio idea and I took the little bistro table and chairs that was on the front porch and moved it to the back porch, since we never use it in the front. And now we can have dinner on the back patio or I can have my coffee in the morning and enjoy the watching the kids play in the back yard. At least there is some shade in the back yard.
I must say we had a pretty big back yard in the old house in Houston, but this one is truly amazing! Our home is on the corner lot, right around the corner from the elementary school but on a cul-de-sac street so there is no thru traffic. This corner lot is absolutely huge! Front and back. The True Green guy today said the front yard alone is probably over 6000 sq ft. No wonder it was so expensive when I used the sprinkler system last August! We were thrilled to have a custom inground sprinkler system and as we have never had one before, I watered the lawn a couple times a week for one month and BAM! What a water bill! I think it was something like $500. Really ridiculous! In fact, I got really mad and had them come out to check for a leak, but they couldn't find one.
So needless to say, I stopped using the sprinkler system. We had to cut up the bill over the last several months and include it in our regular water bill.
But now with summer here, it has been so dry here that everyone's lawns have been pretty brown, so I am starting to water with the sprinkler again, just sparingly though. But we could lose this beautiful lawn if we let the heat take over. It is just so big that we would have to have like 8 hoses or be constantly moving the water hose if I watered it by hand. This week I set it to water only 6-10 minutes twice a week just to keep the lawn from dying. So we'll see......
As I said before, Lance is moving the company into the Medical and Construction side of things, since it is so huge here. When he made that decision last week it has been freaky how things have been happening. The very next morning, what over 11 months in business?, a Dentist actually walks INTO the office, in his full scrubs, and places an order for an office administrator for his new office. He said he'd been dropping off his daughter at the driver's school just a few doors down and had been meaning to come in for some time and just kept putting it off. But lo and behold, Lance made the decision to focus on Medical Staffing and here comes a medical order! Then that night, on our date, our waitress turns out to be a pharmacy tech who just moved here with her husband and has been looking for something for 2 months. And her husband is also looking and he does something like Lab tech or something like that! Weird how God works things out.
Of course we know that once you really make up your mind to do something, many times the unexplainable begins to happen. Those little coincidences don't seem so coincidental anymore.
By the way, my allergists office called and said the scan of my sinuses showed that I STILL have a sinus infection! I just got over about of antibiotics for it and I really don't want to take anymore. But he has prescribed me one I haven't had before so maybe this will knock it out finally. I am going to have to really put together a regimine of supplementation with friendly bacteria since these antibiotics are wiping out literally every bacteria I have in my body, good and bad alike. My immune system is going to be shot if this keeps up. It probably is already.
But that is all going to change this summer! I am determined! Dream It, Believe It, Do It!
I've got to go now, I've spent too much time blogging today and I'm going to enjoy the warm breeze on my back patio with my sweeties. (Lance is out practicing his rock-n-roll again. They are actually going to record this weekend!)
Blog ya later!
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