The drive down went well. We decided to leave at 5am - a compromise between myself and the bride. I voted for 6 and she wanted 4am. I only get up at 4 to run...not to drive.
My sister, her husband and their 4 kids rented the house next to ours. Friends of theirs stayed with them and they also have 4 kids and they brought along a cousin. So it was 27 people total between the 2 houses.
Shockingly no one killed anyone and there were very few arguments. So I don't have any funny Vacation stories.
In general the week was great. We didn't do a whole lot of activities or sightseeing. We basically were on the beach from around 10am until dinner every night. The kids played great together on the beach. The big kids watched out for the little kids in the water so dad actually got to read on the beach.
Evenings were spent climbing the sand dunes, in the hot tub, watching the Olympics or playing games.
The biggest problem was that 6 of our kids got the stomach virus thing (again - we just went through this 6 weeks ago - is there a patron saint of hurling?). They got it one by one through out the week, with the 6th to get throwing-up 5 minutes into the ride home.
To make matters worse, the night before we left one of my sister's friend's kids got the stomach virus from us...no word on whether or not any of the others have gotten it since they got home.
Also my sister's oldest was sick the whole and spent a lot of hours at the local health clinic. Turns out she had pneumonia. They left Thursday evening since she felt so lousy.
One night we bought 2 bushels of hard crabs and grilled some dogs and steaks and had a great meal for all 27 of us. Another night we ordered pizza. Other than that we cooked at the house.
A side note - when did it become common practice for all body types/sizes to wear two-piece bathing suits? On certain bodies a one-piece is much more flattering. As my 94 year-old grandmother says "do people even look in the mirror before they go out?"
A vacation summary.
The Good
Time with the Family
Daily Mass
Running
Crabs
Good Weather
The Water and Beach
Coming home with about half the cash I took
The Bad
Leaving
The Drive Home
The Ugly
6 of my kids throwing-up during the week.
1 of my sister's kid getting pneumonia
1 of her friends kids getting the stomach bug from us
very plus size women wearing bikinis
Here are a few of the 500 pictures we took
Barbara and Friend
13 of us
Dad, Mom and Hunter
Playing at the Sand Dunes
Alex and Mary at the Dunes
All the Kids but one
Cecilia Hunting for Treasures
Down Time at Night
5 comments:
i missed you guys this week... wasnt easy not havin you all to chat with... but i survived... thank goodness last week was a peak training week... i had 16 hours of training to keep me occupied... :)
ok, so tell me what day i have to go to this mass thing with you all... :)
of course, it will have to be after all this PUKING subsides...
nasty...
just imagine how I WOULD have reacted to someone puking on my shoes... JUST IMAGINE!!! the germ freak that i am... UGH...
"The big kids watched out for the little kids in the water so dad actually got to read on the beach."
...did you forget that the bride was at the beach house with the whining two year old with diarrhea,a one year old who was teething with diarrhea and throwing up, and the 4 year old who had the virus with fever and throwing up??? That was pretty ugly!!! I did get some reading in too!!!
Sorry that there was some sickness involved, but overall it really did sound like a nice relaxing vacation.
My husband and I were talking about how "if" we could take a vacation just the two of us, it would be a 2-3 stay on a beach with nothing to do. The sounds, the surf, the smells, the sun ... my most favorite spot in the world.
Loved the photos. Cecilia hunting for treasures is just beautiful. I can also relate to the crowd. My Mom lives on a beach in FL and when my family comes with my brother and his 5 AND then my sister comes ... we had blow up mattresses everywhere. It was a little tight for my taste ;)
Man O man I am sorry about the puking. I loathe puking. I mean pathologically I loathe puking. If there were APD (anxiety puking disorder) I would have it. My fear of puking (in myself or anyone else) is what 'made' me have to watch calories and exercise because I could never do Bulimia!
I love all the pics tho. You are a gorgeous family.
And, Sam, my hats off to her taking care of 3 kids with the runs and/or spews. I don't think there is enough Xanax in the world to get me through that.
Rach - we still have kids with stuff coming out of both ends. I think we are at the end...we are running out of kids to get stick.
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