Vacation day 6

Thursday, December 2: Day 6

With only a few days left in this vacation, the pressure is on to make the most of it. One of the challenges of this trip has been to quench the desire to “accomplish all we can” while maintaining our patience with the needs of our kids. It’s not fair to expect our kids to behave and listen the way we want them to if we are pushing them to miss naps or stay up later than they normally would or force them to do things that WE want to do. The end result has been a great one. Each day, we’ve gone to playgrounds and ate at restaurants that may not have ever made our list of desirable places to eat. We’ve even done our best to stay within a reasonable distance from the condo so we could get back for nap times. Yesterday, I admitted to being frustrated at a “lack of freedom” but today I realized that these things have a.) made my kids a whole lot of fun to spend time with when they are awake and b.) helped me to ultimately accomplish what I wanted most out of this trip…relaxation! Each day, we’ve had several hours just hanging out around the condo. I’ve been able to read, which I never do. I’ve laid on the couch and even napped. In the evenings, we’ve just hung out. Just writing this daily journal has been therapeutic and necessary for me to appreciate not only my time here with my wife and kids, away from the daily distractions and responsibilities but also to, in many ways, recuperate from a pretty exhausting few months.

At around 5:30am, shortly after Reed had started crying, I heard Avin calling out from the kid’s bathroom. I got up to see what was the matter and he had gotten up to go to the bathroom and was basically standing in the bathroom (next to a crying Reed) shouting his announcement that he had, in fact, gone to the bathroom. I quickly quieted, congratulate and guided him back to his bed. As I left the kids room, Amanda was dealing with Reed. With everything seemingly under control, I headed back to bed. I slept on and off for the next hour or so and then came out to join the rest of the family. The kids had all had a small breakfast snack as Amanda was trying to hold them off for a bigger breakfast back at Another Broken Egg at the Baytowne Wharf. Once we were all clean, dressed, and ready to go, we headed back across the highway. At the restaurant, we shared a plate full of their signature “biscuits” which weren’t really biscuits at all. They looked, and tasted, more like pieces of funnel cake and they were awesome. For the main course, we all shared 3 large, warm cinnamon rolls. After breakfast, we went to Jubilee Island. This island is just down the street from the wharf and it really neat. Off the main road that winds through the resort is a gravel drive that leads to a bridge open only to foot traffic. This bridge takes you to a small island with a pirate them. On this island, there are all kinds of trails that weave and cross. These trails lead you to a small pirate ship playground, picnic areas, large viewing stands (or pirate roosts), there’s even a small playhouse. Once again, we had the place to ourselves. It felt like we were on our own private island. We explored for a while. Avin served as the tour guide and would constantly say, “does anyone have any questions?” We would try to ask him questions like “what kind of plant is that?” or “where will this path take us?” He wasn’t much of a tour guide as he didn’t have answers to any of our questions, but he certainly did a good job of leading the hike.

After the hike, we went back down the street to the wharf where we let the kids play on the playground for a few minutes. From there, we went for a stroll around the wharf (we’ve been there every day but never actually went anywhere but the playground and Another Broken Egg). The place was full of shops, restaurants and entertainment. There was a giant checker board, zip lines, ropes courses, an outdoor ice rink and a stage. Near the stage was a courtyard with a large Christmas tree where we just let the kids run around for a while. We could tell that during the prime seasons, this place was probably bustling with activity.

Having spent a good deal of time at the Wharf, we headed back to the Condo around 11:30 to eat lunch and let Cooper and Reed take their naps. While I ate my sandwich, I decided to FaceTime Drew. Poor guy was sitting in an empty conference room in Terre Haute where we had schedule some Medicare seminars only to not have a single individual show up. So, I added salt to his wounds by showing him my view of the beach. The temperature was about 60 and Avin and Parker had been dying to go swimming, so Amanda took them down to the pool (which is heated). For the next few hours, she hung out poolside while the boys basically sat on the pool stairs and I hung out on the patio of the condo. For the first time all week, I had a little interaction with the office. I had to take care of some very small issues. It’s really been a great week to be away as I really didn’t leave much undone at work and I’ve had very few emails and even fewer calls from the office. In addition to talking to a few individuals at the office, I got to talk to Rena as well. Reen couldn’t believe that ICI (or any company for that matter) would offer such a perk as a free condo stay in Florida. I acknowledged what a blessing it truly is to work for a company that puts such high value on not only their employees, but also the families.

After those few hours of swimming, napping, working and chatting, we headed back out. Something worth mentioning here…As we prepared to leave, I discovered Reed has got a groove thang goin’. I began to create a beat and move my head from side to side and Reed would mimic. It was awesome and we all made him do it all night. Moving on…we headed to the outlet mall, primarily to go to the kids clothing stores. The first store we stopped in was the one we spent the most time in. It was crewcuts. This is J.Crew’s kids store. All of our kids are growing out of stuff pretty quickly and they really had some good deals on some cool stuff for each of them. The most difficult part of that experience though was boy’s discovery of ties. This store sold boys ties that actually tied. I thought it was comically since most grown men don’t know how to tie a tie these days. To make matters worse, they were all really cheesy looking and had things like candy canes or ginger bread men on them. We left that store with a bag full of clothes and two very upset little boys that didn’t get ties. I tried my best to explain to them why buying something like that wasn’t a good use of our money and how they really wouldn’t have many opportunities to wear a tie. At our next stop however, we found cheap, decent looking, no-tieing ties and we bought them. Avin and Parker were so excited they insistent on wearing their new ties the rest of the night. After we hit a couple of other stores, it was time for dinner.

At about 5:00pm, we headed toward the Hard Rock Café at Destin Commons. We figured the kids would probably enjoy the atmosphere there. Unfortunately, after entering the restaurant, we were told that they were hosting a private event and we could stay. That’s kind of been the story of the week, get the kids all excited about something only to get shot down. Needing a solution quick and knowing that they would love pizza, we decided to try Red Brick Pizza there at the commons. It was good and the kids enjoyed having a TV there at our table.

After pizza, it’s was time for our nightly ice cream. So, it was back to the marble slab. We each enjoyed our ice cream creation and headed back to the condo. This was our latest night out of the week but the kids needed some wind down time before bed. So, I let them all have just a few minutes of reading time in their beds before I came in to read about some new dinosaurs. Then, it was highs of the day followed by prayer and lights out. I held off my journaling for a bit tonight as it’s caused me to miss out on the short window of time between when the kids go to bed and when Amanda falls asleep. Unfortunately, Greys and Private Practice were one so it would have been a good night to go ahead and type while she enjoyed her shows.

It was another great and beautiful day here. One more full day of vacation left and we plan to make the most of it. Until then…