Friday morning Andrew got a swim in and then picked up some dry ice for our cooler. He was successful with the dry ice this time unlike when he decided to forgo the dry ice for regular ice last time we headed to the beach. All the food I had cooked and froze ended up a soggy mess with water all over it. So we learned from our mistake and got the dry ice this time. After a stop in Columbia at Cracker Barrel for a quick, noneventful lunch (thank goodness) we were on our way to St. Louis. We dropped off the older kids at Sara and Ryan's new house, got a quick tour, and then headed down to Washington University so the twins could participate in a study. It involved them separately watching a 40 minute video in a dark room so they could track their eye movement. I went with Bennett and Andrew went with Miles. The twins really seemed to enjoy the video but I was thankful I only had to watch it once. It had different clips from various kids' shows along with footage of kids playing. Every now and then the screen would go black and different colored icons would flash up on the screen. They both did such a great job and sat through the whole thing without really fussing. I jokingly asked the ladies doing the study if we could borrow the video for the car the next day. A funny thing they both did (at different times without seeing each other) was try to get into this little car they had in the waiting room. Great minds think alike.
We had about an hour to kill before we had dinner reservations with the family downtown, so we headed over to a park in Forest Park. Lissy and Molly met us there for a little bit and then we headed to the restaurant where the rest of the family met us.
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| Our caravan |
We stopped in De Funiak to eat lunch (do not stop at the Arby's there-it is always nasty...this time there was a a dead fly smeared across the window we were sitting by) and hit up a Wal-Mart before we made the last little bit of our trek. We got to our house a little before we were allowed to check in but the owner of the house was there finising up some stuff and let us in. After quite a bit of unpacking the kids were itching to get to the beach. They had a fun first afternoon/evening playing out in the yard and down at the beach. The yard was a great place for the kids to run around. And the older guys got busy launching water balloons at everyone.
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| Lissy and I handed out the beach bags we made to the grandkids before we headed to the beach |
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| Enjoying donuts courtesy of Andy and Autumn |
Tuesday night was the end of our beautiful weather. It proceeded to rain all day Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday was just a lot of rain so we decided to take the kids to Monsters University over in Destin. Well, we weren’t the only ones getting away from the beach. The traffic was horrible! We got within 12 miles of Destin and Andy looked up Google Traffic and it said it would take 1 ½ hours to travel those 12 miles to the movie theater. So we turned around because we knew we would be really late for the movie. My mom had ordered the tickets online and when they finally got back to her about a refund they told her it was a record-breaking day. They usually have around 5000-7000 ticket sales and that day they had between 9000-10000. We didn’t really try to venture out too much after that. Lissy picked up a couple movies and popcorn for the kids on the way home from our movie theater attempt. And I think it was on Wednesday, but the girls came up with some dance routines. There was a little fighting involved over who was in charge. Ellie thought it was her because she was the oldest. Bella thought it was her because she was the one who came up with the original idea for the girls to bring their dance costumes. Briley thought it was her because she didn't want others telling her what to do. Molly solved their problem by giving them each their own song and then all the kids did a finale together. The rain stopped for a bit in the evening, so they did their performances on the beach.
The kids did pretty well and kept themselves entertained building forts, singing karaoke, making up dances and all sorts of fun stuff in their bunk rooms. They just had a lot of fun playing with each other, with a few fights in between. Our house was set up as one house with three units, so they had a lot of room to explore. Jackson was a little bit bored though since he was the oldest and isn’t into all the stuff as much. He did play a lot on his DS which is was okay with. My siblings got a kick out of Lincoln and his pirate ship coffee table. My parents’ unit had a coffee table with a “captain’s wheel” as the base. He would lay under it, hold onto the wheel, and just keep repeating, “Anchor’s away.” It was part of his entertainment during the rainy days. The highlight of Wednesday was the Mexican dinner Lissy, Caroline, Jared, and Molly made for us.
Thursday was even more rain-there were flood warnings, rip current warnings, etc. I would have thought it was at least a tropical storm/depression the way the rain was coming down and the wind was blowing. It just didn’t stop. It definitely wasn’t the Fourth of July we had envisioned. I did dress the kids in their red, white, and blue but didn’t even get any pictures. The parade and fireworks were canceled which was a bummer. The parade was going to go right by our house and we were going to watch fireworks on the beach. A few people went down to the beach just to see what it looked like including Jackson and Andrew. And some of us got into an intense game of kickball out in the rain and wind. Miles and Bennett even came out for a bit to enjoy the beautiful weather. It was good for all of them to get out though.
We also spent a lot of time looking at the radar and praying for things to clear up because the chance of it happening would have had to have been a miracle. But we knew we weren’t the only ones going through this. It was frustrating to do all the preparation for the vacation and being down at the beach and to have to just sit around the house all day. But I was telling them that we were kind of like the Israelites that complained when things didn’t go their way even after God had done so many amazing things for them. We all took turns being the pessimist or optimist J. It was some good bonding time though, just sitting around and talking to everyone (and eating) interspersed with screaming kids. I also finished a good book which doesn’t happen very often these days.
Friday morning I started actually packing up in hopes that Saturday would be good and I wouldn’t have to do it then. Andrew really wanted to just go ahead and head home but I kept putting it off. We did have a couple hours of no rain late morning/early afternoon on Friday. It was overcast and the beach wasn’t beautiful like it usually is, but we were excited. It was a double red flag day which meant we couldn’t get in the water. With it being overcast, it was a nice temperature. And the kids had a good time playing in the wet sand. Andrew and Jackson made a shark sand sculpture and the twins loved feeding the seagulls. They didn’t really feed them but just kept dropping their snacks and the seagulls would swarm. Miles and Bennett kept yelling at them and waving their hands at them. They were pretty funny. And Owen became my good buddy because I had snacks. Anytime I would walk by my bag, he was there signing “more”. Ellie took Carolina under her wing (I called them honorary sisters since they both just have lots of brothers) and they spent a lot of time looking for seashells. Ellie put them all in a cup of water and later their little tentacles started popping out. It was kind of intriguing and gross at the same time. They would also shake. We also attempted to get a group shot of the grandkids-kind of funny.
The rain showed up around lunch time so it was back in the house for the rest of the afternoon. My parents decided they wanted us to all go out to eat in Seaside. Crazy idea, but they really wanted to. We usually don’t go out to eat with our group, but I think we were all getting stir crazy. They went over early and put our name in since The Great Southern Café doesn’t take reservations. We all got dressed in clothes for family pictures in hopes that we could maybe get a family picture while we were over there. It started sprinkling again when we got there so the big group picture was off. Lissy was able to take a few smaller family pictures though. We did ours by the Seaside school and I think she got a cute one to possibly use for a Christmas card. We only took around 5 minutes to do them. I know she had other grand visions of pictures she wanted (she did get some cute ones of the grandgirls in the swim suits and dresses she got for them) and all the activities she had planned for the kids-bummer.
Over two hours after my parents put their name in, we finally got in to eat. Actually we were out on the side covered-porch which worked great for us. Our waiter was awesome. He had us order the kids’ food first and got that going and then came back and got our order. He wasn’t intimidated at all by our group of 32. It was a delicious meal and then we went back to the house where Sara had stuff for ice cream sundaes for the kids. She rocked the snacks. It seemed like she kept bringing out all sorts of dips and desserts she had made and frozen. Her food kept us entertained during the rainy days.
Saturday was such a hopeful day. Andrew got up and decided he would go for a run. A little later I came upstairs to find him sitting in a chair staring outside. The rain started up just as he was getting ready to go. The rest of the day was pretty entertaining. We did have periods of no rain and we took advantage of it. We would gather up everything and the kids and head down to the beach for maybe an hour and debate whether the storms were moving towards us or another direction. I guess they were always heading towards us no matter which direction they were coming from. We would wait until the last minute, put all the toys and chairs in a pile and run up to the house in the rain. We did this two times before lunch and once after lunch. But it was a good day at the beach. It was just one red flag, so the kids could go in a bit but still couldn’t boogie board or anything like that. Andrew made a lot of beach drawings in the sand with Jackson’s help and the twins fed the seagulls again. My mom dug a “stream” from the hold Andrew had in the sand from digging earlier and the hole and stream would fill up with water when the tide came up. The younger kids loved playing in it. We were hoping to go back down after our third trip back to the house, but it didn’t look like it was going to happen so we started packing up so we could leave early the next morning. Bennett passed out in the high chair during lunch-he was worn out.
My parents grilled that night for dinner and we tried to clear out some food. Since Caroline and Jared were just going back to Tampa, they took a lot of the extra food, especially the cold stuff. We also made one last attempt for a family picture just out in the back yard. We just wanted to document us all being together and it was a beautiful night. Later that night, after most of us were finished loading up the cars, some of the kids went on a last crab hunt.
Andrew had set his alarm for 4am but when I got up to give Miles his pacifier I noticed it was 5. I guess his alarm was set for weekdays and not weekends. We got around pretty quickly though and headed out around 5:45. We got not even an hour into our trip and Miles threw up a bit outside of Florala. Luckily it was just a mixture of some water and fruit snacks. Andrew cleaned him up while I found some clothes for him and then we were on our way. We were doing pretty well with time until we hit some backed up traffic from construction in Kentucky a few times and then a wreck just outside St. Louis. So after stops for meals and one bathroom break, we made it home in 17 hours. An hour longer than usual. The kids did pretty well for being in the car that long. We pulled into home around 10:45pm and I unloaded the kids while Andrew got the car topper and hitch haul off so we could park the car in the garage. After we got the kids to bed I ran to the store to pick up some milk and a few other things so we would have a little food until I could get my big grocery store list together. I spent all day Monday unpacking, doing laundry, and putting stuff away. That is never fun. We found out just before we headed home that Jackson's baseball tournament was still going on and they had a game Monday night in Novinger. I was able to contact our sitter Sara on our way home and she was able to babysit the other kids while we took Jackson. I figured they were all tired and would rather play at home than sit at a game. Jackson's team lost so that was officially the end of their season. They gave out their medals at the end of the game.
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