Vacation 2010 - Days 5 & 6 - Thursday and Friday

Well, I'm posting a week late. A lot happened in the last two days of our vacation. Let's start at the beginning.






Thursday morning was beautiful.



We spent a few hours outside enjoying the beautiful weather... we swam in the ocean, played on the beach, floated in the lazy river, and just enjoyed ourselves. Then the weather changed. We had just finished lunch and a huge storm flew in.









We let Elijah sleep for a few hours and decided to take him to Ripley's Aquarium... we had gotten free tickets from the time-share presentation we had gone to on Monday. We were thinking it would be wonderful and amazing; however, we were sorely disappointed. Either we missed something or it's just not that great.







Then we decided to be really bold. Elijah's sleep patterns were WAY out of whack during vacation. Despite our best efforts to keep him on a fairly normal schedule, he was up way later than normal and then slept a little later than usual. So when we decided to take him to a miniature golf course for the first time, we were taking a huge risk. Anyone who has ever raised a boy through the toddler years (and probably girls, too) knows that when they're sleep deprived they can be real terrors. (Shoot, they can be that way when they're NOT sleep deprived just because they're toddlers.) Anyway... things started out great when we first hit the green. :) However, after about three or four holes, Eli's patience continued to wear thinner and thinner. Needless to say we didn't finish all 18 holes, but we did have a little bit of fun.





We stopped at Angelo's on the way back to the condo... not like the Angelo's steak house in Panama City Beach that we're used to, but it was really good food. The service was slow but the food was tasty. Then it was "home" to bed.





Friday dawned bright and beautiful as well. I think it might have been the most beautiful day of all.
We went to the beach (of course), swam, played in the sand, floated in the lazy river, swam in the pool, and enjoyed our last full day on vacation. We had seen a pizza place earlier in the week called East of Chicago and decided to go there for lunch. It had a very full pizza buffet. I'm not a fan of buffets but this was yummy. Plus they had games, kind of like Chuck E. Cheese, so Elijah loved it even more.

Once we'd all eaten our full, used up all our game tokens, and redeemed Elijah's tickets for cheap prizes, we headed back to the condo for nap time. Traffic was rather frantic. As we were sitting at a red light, a truck rammed us from the rear end. We had only had our car for 5 weeks, so my first response after I knew everyone was okay was, "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" Jason and I were stiff for a few days but don't appear any worse for the wear. Our car... not so much.

We finally got our naps then went to the outlet mall down the road followed by dinner at Big Daddy's steakhouse. Yummo!

More later.

Vacation 2010 - Day 4

Day 4, Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Elijah and I slept a little later than we had the first few days. While I was clearing the table so we could eat some breakfast, my neck "caught" in the worst cramp/crick I've had in a while. I decided to lay back down after breakfast. Jason rubbed my neck. Eli rubbed my neck. I took ibuprofen. I used a heating pad. Nothing helped. I finally decided to play through the pain. So we went to the beach. Where else?

We played in the sand for a while before Elijah decided he wanted to go to the lazy river with Jason. After a few hours of playing, we went inside and got cleaned up. We'd been hearing about Joe's Crab Shack for years and had never gone. Well, we finally found one and went. The food was really quite good. We let Elijah ride on a carousel after lunch. Then it was back to the condo for (very late) naps. Eli and I slept from about 3:00 to 6:00.

Jason had been craving a buffet; I hate buffets. We went to a buffet. Yuck! I was not impressed w/ the quality or quantity of food on their buffet, sohe c I just got chicken strips from the menu. They were burned!

After dinner, we stopped at CVS for some Advil PM so I could hopefully sleep w/ the crick in my neck. Then it was "home" to the condo.

Vacation 2010 - Day 3

Day 3, today, Tuesday, June 15

Awoke early again thanks to Eli's internal alarm clock that goes off between 7:30 and 7:45 pretty much every day. Looked outside to see that it was in fact another beautiful clear day.

Elijah and I ate a small breakfast, Honey Nut Cheerios and fruit. I showered and got both of us ready for the beach. We were ocean front by 9:30 A.M. Jason didn't join us until approximately an hour later at which point he and Elijah went up to the lazy river and kiddie pool while I enjoyed a little "quiet/me" time on the beach with a few thousand of my closest friends. :)

We headed back in at noon for lunch, showers, and naps. While Elijah slept, I decided to go to Walmart to get us some cheap beach chairs (figured it was cheaper to buy 2 we can keep for $20 than what it would cost to rent chairs for the rest of the week), laundry detergent and fabric softener, and snacks. Evidently, while I was gone, Elijah woke up to find Jason napping with him instead of me. This didn't go well. When I got back hauling all my purchases from the parking lot across the street, through the parking garage, up the elevator and down the hall way, I found Eli sulking in the living room chair while he and Jason watched Dinosaur Train on PBS. "He just threw one of the worst fits I've ever seen," Jason reported. I asked what happened. "He woke up and you weren't here." I asked Eli if that was all it was. He nodded a sulky "yes" and threw his arms around me. Bless his heart. He is his mama's little man.

So I got him to lie back down for a while. As of now, he's been asleep for another hour or so. We'll see how long it lasts. More later.

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Once Elijah woke up we decided to go eat dinner. We chose Friendly's to eat b/c their online menu looked pretty basic and yummy. Elijah had been asking to play mini golf so we went to the one right across the street. What we failed to notice when we bought our tickets was that the line of people in front of us was approximately 20-30 people. We got a rain check to come back at a less congested time. So we went back to the condo and took Eli to the beach in the dark. He thought that was prett cool.

Vacation 2010 - Day 2

Day 2 was Monday, June 14.

We started the day by eating a small breakfast at the condo. Then we went to a "90-minute" time share presentation to get free Ripley's aquarium tickets and $50 "cash." That turned into an almost-three-hour session that ended in us deciding not to buy a time share, three tickets to Ripley's aquarium, and a $50 check. GRRRR! Eli did really well considering that he's only two, but we all have our limits. He was so excited when we finally left, so as soon as we got back to the condo and ate a light lunch I took him to the beach to play. I told him when we left the condo, "Make sure you tell Mommy when you're ready for your nap. I can't take you to the beach if you're going to be fussy and cranky. Okay?"

We played for about an hour and a half. We built sand castles, filled the buckets with water and dumped them out over and over, played in the waves, and floated in the lazy river. Then around 2:00 Eli said, "Okay, Mommy. I think it's time for my nap nap now." So we came inside, I showered all the sand off him, and put him to bed. Life is good.

Jason had stayed inside due to some sunburned shoulders he had acquired on Sunday. :)

After nap time we went back out to the beach for about an hour. Then it was showers for everyone. Since we (aka, I) had forgotten our phone charger at home and both our phones were rapidly losing battery power, we stopped at a Verizon store for a new charger. Jason wanted some new plain white Polo t-shirts so we stopped at the Tanger outlet center. The checkout girl told us about a good seafood place on the beach; however, it was almost 8:00 already, so we went to the Japanese steak house across the street from the outlet mall. Ichiro's was the name, I think. It was pretty good.

Then a quick stop at Food Lion for some aloe gel for Jason's shoulders and we went "home" to the condo for bed. Good night!

Vacation 2010, Day 1

Yesterday was the first official day of our vacation. We left Ringgold on Saturday around 7:45 P.M. after Jason got home from work. We arrived in Myrtle Beach around 3:15 A.M. and immediately took Elijah to the balcony of our condo to look at the ocean. Then we all crashed.

Sunday morning, a few hours later, Eli rolled over in bed and announced that it was time to get up. Jason said, "Well, I guess I can sleep when I'm dead." So we all got up, showered, and went to breakfast at Denny's. Where else? :)

As we left Denny's a man approached Jason about "earning" some free Ripley's aquarium tickets by going to a timeshare preview on Monday morning. Thirty minutes later, we left Denny's with an appointment for a timeshare preview and the promise of 3 tickets to the aquarium and $50.00.

We went to our condo and got ready for THE BEACH! Elijah was so excited. Aw, who am I kidding? So were Jason and I. We stayed at the beach for a while, played in the pool, Jason and Eli rode in the lazy river, we went back to the beach. We were basically beach bums for the a few hours. It was wonderful! Then it was nap time. Jason went to the grocery store for breakfast and lunch foods while Eli took his nap and I watched t.v.

After nap time we decided it was time for dinner. So we went to Godfather's Pizza. (We had looked for one last year on vacation but never found one.) I wasn't overly impressed, but Jason enjoyed it and Elijah got a sticky bouncy ball on a string. So he was happy. He decided he wanted to go to the beach again. I couldn't resist, so Elijah and I changed into our suits and went back to the beach while Daddy stayed on the balcony and took pictures of us. We were using Eli's new beach toys that we bought a few weeks back. Somehow the ocean got ahold of the rake that came with the set and swept it out to sea. I was more interested in keeping track of Elijah and making sure he didn't become shark bait to worry too much about the rake. But Elijah was upset that he lost his "scraper" in the sea.

Then it was back to the condo for Eli's second shower of the day and my third. Then a good night's sleep was had by all.

The Graveyard Shift

Yesterday as Elijah and I were making our way from my parents' house in Lookout Valley back to our house in Ringgold, we decided to make a stop at Bojangle's in Fort Oglethorpe. The thought of fried chicken, mac 'n cheese, and french fries was too much to resist after a long morning of house work. I cut through East Ridge and was driving past the Lakewood Memorial Gardens. Elijah piped up in the back seat: "See all those flowers? I used to work there."

"Really?" I asked. "What did you do there?"

"Well," he said. "There were toys."

I was really curious. "So there were toys at that cemetery?"

"Yep. And yogurt and cheese and computers."

Oddly enough, those are four of his favorite things. I do hope he ends up doing something he loves as a job when he's older. But I can't imagine wanting to work in a cemetery.

Jingle Bells & Old MacDonald

Elijah loves music. This has been evident since early in his life. Even as early as in-utero. He would "dance" in my tummy and use my bladder as his kick drum.

Well, now that he's old enough to memorize lyrics, he loves music even more. We listen to his "Bible songs" in the car pretty much daily. This is helping him increase his singing ability as well as his knowledge of Bible verses. However, the child's musical interests are not limited to the religious.

His newest favorite bedtime ritual includes me, a stuffed Elmo, and a fluffy stuffed dog (appropriately named Sally Fluffy Puppy). I hold Elmo and SFP off to the sides of Elijah's bunk bed, make them peek around the edges at him, and then they enter to sing and dance. A few weeks back Elmo and SFP (aka, Mommy) sang "Jingle Bells" for him. Deciding to be funny, I changed the lyrics to: "Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Granny got a gun. Shot me in the underwear, and boy did I run."

Elijah quickly corrected me and said, "No, Mommy. That's not it. This is how it goes: 'Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells. Jingle all the way. Old MacFarmer had to ride in a one-horse open sleigh."

It took me several "re-sings" before I figured out what he was saying in place of "oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh." Once I did, I told Jason. He said, "You've got to add that to your blog." And now I have.