Our car was packed pretty full when we left. We brought a
lot of paper products and food/snacks/drinks to share with everyone and added a
couple more boogie boards to the fleet. We had the cargo topper packed, the
back of the car was packed to the top and then our bikes on the back. I
finished up the last o the laundry and dishes, shut down the house and we were
on our way a little before 10. I fed the kids some pb&j before we left so
we didn’t have to stop for lunch. Plus they each had a bag of snacks to tide
them over to dinner time. We didn’t stop for 5 ½ hours, which is probably a
record for us. But, we had to fill up. Andrew drove the whole way and I was
able to get some office work done, finish up the last blog post, and get our
grocery delivery orders placed. We ate an early dinner at a Cracker Barrell
somewhere near the Tennessee/ Mississippi border and then finished out the rest
of our trip to Tupelo. We got into Tupelo around 7:30, got checked in and
settled and then went for some ice cream at Baskin-Robbins.
We didn’t have to rush out too early the next morning, so we
slept in a bit and ate breakfast at the hotel before leaving. We stopped for
lunch and even though the traffic was kind of bad at spots, we got to the house
just a little after when we could get in at 4. We were the first ones there, so
we started unpacking our stuff and getting everything put away before the
groceries were delivered. Plus, I was in charge of dinner that night, so I got
started on getting that all prepped. Andrew’s parents and siblings got there a
little later and Kristin and Annie figured out how to split the bedrooms with
the kids. I worked quickly to get everything put away while answering messages
from the shoppers on items that weren’t available at the stores and
replacements and everything was delivered around 5:30. The guys helped bring in
the groceries and we all got stuff put away while I started dinner. I made
tacos, chicken taquitos, mexicorn casserole along with chips, salsa and queso.
We split up dinner duties the rest of the week. I made one of the kids’
favorites later in the week, basil penne pasta with chicken along with some
roasted green beans, salad and bread. Throughout the week, I made rice krispie
treats and oven s’mores that were quickly devoured. We went through a lot of
snacks. It was a fun week. The kids had a lot of fun with their cousins playing
at the beach, at the pool and throughout the house. Lincoln, of course,
introduced them to Pokemon Quest videos and they watched tv and movies for some
down time. The girls liked having some girl time in their room and Ellie did a
lot of hair. Jackson split his time between hanging with us, trying to interact
with the younger ones some and finding solitude in his little bunkroom. We had
good weather, a little warm, but only one rain storm that had us packing up
from the beach a little early and a rain storm as we drove back to the house
one afternoon even though rain had been forecasted all week. We did encounter
quite a few jellyfish that kept the kids a little hesitant to get in the water
sometimes. But they still got in a lot and spent a lot of time catching
jellyfish and burying them. There was some boogie boarding even though we had
pretty calm water most of the time. We also had our football game. Andrew had
one of the best plays where Matthew made a long pass to him and Andrew ran out
into the waves and the waves took him down as he went for the ball. It was a
fun game, but I didn’t get any pictures since I was playing too.
They built sand castles and dug around in the sand. Matthew
was in charge of building a big sand castle and employed everyone’s help. They
were very proud of it. I was the last one at the beach that evening and it was
all good when I came up for dinner. But then I heard them all yelling and a
family that had set up next to us decided to let their kids totally destroy it
soon after I came up. I felt it was pretty wrong of the parents to let them do
that and our kids were worked up. They were yelling smack at them from our
balconies, although they couldn’t hear. At one point, Bennett yelled, “Hey
parent! Why don’t you parent?”
We, of course, had a night of crab hunting. The kids brought
out all their flashlights and nets and got to work. They stayed busy and it was
fun to hear the giggling and screams. They ended up collecting a bunch in a
bucket and Matthew had them all gather around to look at it. It was kind of
creepy. He told them that he would buy ice cream for whoever would stick their
hand in the bucket for 5 seconds. While he had them captivated, he dumped the
bucket and they all went screaming in different directions. I got a pretty
funny video of it.
One day we got a little bit of a show from a Blue Angels jet.
They were having an air show in Pensacola at the end of the week and we got to
watch a practice run with flying high and some nose dives, even a loopty-loop.
It was a pretty relaxing vacation in that the kids are
getting a little older and more independent, and might I say little less whiny 😊.
Andrew was great about taking them all up later in the afternoon to swim or
watch tv while he hung out with his family and I read under our umbrella down
at the beach. I love the late afternoon/evening down at the beach. I always
wanted to stay longer but knew I probably had isolated myself long enough and
made myself head back to the house. We stayed at the house except for one trip into
town to eat lunch at Lamberts with everyone and we did some quick grocery
shopping to replenish the supplies a bit and get some things I needed for my
second meal. We also went to the Beach Club just down the road a couple times
to get ice cream. They have an area called the Village Lawn that is a little
like Seaside with some food trucks, some nighttime entertainment and a few
games for the kids to play. They just brought in a Frostbites food truck this
year which our family was excited about.
Andrew and I did get some workouts in. I ran a few times
during the week and it was muggy. I liked to find the landscape sprinklers and
run through them. The first morning, there was a sprinkler that was
malfunctioning and shooting out a lot of water-it felt good 😊.
If I also did a couple bike rides with Andrew down to Fort Morgan and those
were a little better since you had some wind blowing at you.
One of our last nights there, we decided to do family
pictures. We didn’t talk about it before we left, so I didn’t bring anything
for them. So, we went pretty casual 😊. We did just a few with our family and
probably should have done a few more/worked a little harder at it, but the boys
weren’t having it. And Jackson got his drone out to do the family picture which
turned out neat. He brought it out a few times during vacation and got some
cool footage.
Saturday afternoon/evening was time to finish up the final
loads of laundry and start the packing process. I gathered all of our
miscellaneous items from around the house, cleared out the kids bedrooms and
bathrooms and was in the middle of packing up the clothes when Andrew asked if
I wanted to go get ice cream. He wanted to start packing the car when we got
back to the house and I told him to just give me a few minutes to finish
packing. With clothes spread all over the bed, he assumed it would take me much
longer. He didn’t understand the method to my madness and it was all packed up
in just a few minutes. I surprised him and went ahead and loaded it all in the
car (it fit much better this time) and just had to do the bikes. The kids
stayed up and watched Coco while Andrew and I went to bed. We were up around
4:15 the next morning, everyone got ready, packed up the last of our items and
left the house a little before 5. We decided to do a late lunch and snack
through dinner time. To pass the time on the road, we listened to the new Jim
Gaffigan album for the show we took Jackson and Ellie to. It was just as funny
the second time! Then we discovered several of his albums were on Prime, so that is pretty much what we listened to the rest of the way. We did have a couple incidents while traveling. First, about 5
hours into the trip, Bennett threw up. Thank goodness for the barf bags I
decided to keep in the car. Then he threw up again with less than two hours left in the trip. I think it was just a little bit of car sickness. And then Andrew noticed
what looked like a piece of a rubber gasket sticking out of the hood of the
car. We pulled over and he got it back in place. Then further down the road, a small rock hit the windshield just right and it cracked. Got to love new cars 😊. We stopped in Sikeston for a late lunch at McDonalds and we wished we hadn't. It was dirty, slow, none of the employees smiled or were very helpful (as Andrew said, I don't think anyone in there was happy-customers or employees) and they were totally out of toilet paper-started handing out napkins. We got out of there as quick as we could. Our next stop was Lissy's where they were all so excited to pick up Buddy. Lissy was taking him for a walk when we got there and we think he recognized our car pull up and his ears perked up and he started running for everyone. Andrew held him down, but he so much wanted to jump up on him. He kept yelping and jumping into people. He was a very excited dog. I think he did fairly well for my parents and Lissy (much better than when we boarded him) and we were so, so thankful that they watched him for us. So, Buddy got to ride with us the rest of the way home. We made it there around 7:30 and another nice thing about the kids being older, is that they can help with unloading, cleaning out the car and unpacking. They all helped and once it was all out of the car, Andrew went to the office to make sure he was ready for the week. I had the twins go back and make sure everything was out of the car and Lincoln vacuumed it out. Jackson and Ellie rinsed off all the beach stuff and set it out to dry. I got busy starting laundry and watering all of my bushes/trees. I didn't even mess with my potted flowers and just had Jackson and Ellie throw them out. It had been so dry while we were gone. By 10 that night, I had the first load of laundry done (their blankets, pillowcases, etc they brought with them that got trampled all over in the car) and everything put away except the beach stuff that was still drying. That is always a good feeling. Andrew got home around 10 and we were all so ready for bed.
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