St. Augustine Trip, part 2

Alligator Farm
The Alligator Farm is specialized zoo where all you see are variations on the theme of Things That Look Like Gators.  Surprisingly, it was pretty fun!  Because gators are awesome.

My favorites were these baby gators.

Okay, they're not baby gators at all.  They're a whole different species.  But aren't they adorable?!

A close second was the albino gator.

Kinda freaky looking.  The best part about these is that they can get sunburned!  That kinda cracks me up.

...  A sunburned alligator.  That's just silliness.  ...

Zip Line / Copes Course
Another part of this place is the high copes course.  Miciah thought it sounded great because you went up to, like, 20 whole feet in the air!  She didn't want to do the one that was 60 feet in the air (I didn't, either, cause it was double the price).  There was an age limit, so the boys couldn't go.  I was chosen as the lucky parent that got to do the course with Miciah.

A quick note on that:  Thanks, Rob!  Rob usually gets to do the "fun things" with the kids while I take care of other things - the smaller kids, the house, whatever.  This time I got to do the fun thing!  Sweet.

In this picture you can see Miciah, me, Elijah, and Tank.  And it gives you a sense of how not too far in the air we were for most of it.  Also fun:  Looking down and seeing gators beneath you.

It wasn't really hard, but it was fun.  The girl that came right behind me was 15, and Miciah and I made sure to cheer her on.  At the start of the event, she asked me in her cute Alabama accent, "Is that your little sister?"  And then her eyes kinda popped when I told her Miciah was my daughter.  That doesn't get old.

The boys entertaining themselves while they waited:

Loving that Elijah face.

The Lighthouse
Elijah really wanted to walk to the top of the St. Augustine Lighthouse.  Well, why not?

 

Rob really loved the staircase.  It was pretty cool, but it was hard to get a good picture of it.  Just trust us, it was neat-o.

Not really much else to say about the lighthouse other than we went there and it was fun.

At the top:

It was very bright, but Rob did manage to get that great picture of Elijah.  He's looking at the camera, AND he's not making a goofy face.  Score!

... to be continued.

St. Augustine Trip, part 1

(Today's the day I finish a blog post about our Florida vacation.  I can feel it!)

The Way Down

We tried to cram as much awesomeness into this trip as possible.  Which means that we stopped to see everyone we knew that lived somewhere south of us.

Stop #1 - Winston-Salem, NC

We have some old Cincinnati friends who moved to Winston-Salem for residency.  Our kids would play together all the time, but that was 6 years ago, so they mostly don't remember each other.  No matter, they were instantly friends again and had a great time playing together.  I'm pretty sure that Elijah thought their second daughter, Emma, was the best thing ever.  She can keep up with his energy and is more athletic than he is.  Which means she's perfect.

It was nice to reconnect with them.

Stop #2 - Augusta, GA

Rob had business in Augusta, so we stayed two days in a hotel while he ran seminars and such at the university.  You'd think we'd be bored, but no: there was a hotel pool (which was salt water - a different experience, but a good one.  I think I now prefer salt water pools).  The kids were happy to swim or watch cartoons for most of the time, and I read a book.  It was awesome.  

We also had dinner both nights with Rob's old co-worker and his family (so nice of them), and the kids spent a few hours at a Bounce-Around place.  We're such awesome parents: the kids even got an icee/slurpee thing while at the Bounce-Around.  To share.  Because no one needs an entire slurpee to themselves.

St. Augustine

We stayed at a friend's beach house.  For free.  Isn't that amazing?!  They were so generous to offer, and then they paid for a bunch of stuff while we were down there, too.  I was blown away by how nice and attentive and accommodating they were.  And I thought, "Some day I want to pay that forward."

We went to the beach about as soon as we arrived and were there for the sunset.  Which isn't over the ocean, disappointingly.  I immediately decided we should go to watch a sunrise.  Even Teancom said, "I want to watch the sun set over the ocean."  We showed him the sun setting over the land.  He said, "But I want it over the ocean."  Yeah, me too, my friend.  

July 4th

Beach Day!

The kids and Rob LOVED the water.  The Deans, our hosts, were amazed at how much the kids were into the water.  They were not amazed by how much I wasn't.

They had a surf board, body boards, and other such stuff.  These people are beach prepared.  We didn't bring so much as a shovel and bucket!

Hours spent this way.  Hours.  They were all so happy.  See that face?  Pure joy.

We all got too much sun that day, which isn't too surprising, because we're from Ohio, and we spent 7 hours on a Florida beach.  The kids were exhausted for about 2 days afterward, and I've already told you about me and Rob and our sunburns.  My goal for the day was to avoid painful sunburns for the kids, because we'd never hear the end of it.  So, goal accomplished.

Fireworks

I feel like this was the first year ever we were hyper American.  BBQ on the beach all day, fireworks downtown at night.

As we walked across the bridge, we saw this pirate ship.  Hurray for fake pirate ships!

And this night was my one regret of the vacation.  The Dean's sister and her family also live in St. Augustine.  They had a house guest - a previous sister missionary in their ward.  She said earlier in the day that she was going to a party with lots of deaf people.  I so, so badly wanted to say, "Can I tag along?"  But I didn't, for reasons you can probably imagine.  I thought, then, that this house guest would not be able to attend the fireworks display that night.  But she did!  She made it to both!  When she showed up again, I knew I had missed my moment.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, is the lesson I'm supposed to learn from this, I guess.

Tank with a blanket on his head, for whatever reason (picture taken by Miciah):

...  to be continued.

Pre-Vacation Blog Post Update

Things have been busy around here for the last week, so writing a blog post about our vacation has not made it to the top of my priority list.  Here's what's been happening:

- Cub Scout Day Camp:  Last week Elijah went to Wild West Cubs, and had a great time.  The interesting part about the Day Camp is that about two weeks before it started, we got an e-mail that dripped with desperation.  The director had quit, with no real preparations in place, and the new director was begging for help.  Basically, the e-mail said that we could volunteer to help, or the Day Camp would be cancelled.  Well, people crawled out of the woodwork to make this happen for their kids and grandkids.  I told Rob, "Everyone here is doing this for one boy: their own."

And it was fun.  Rob did the water games one day and archery the other day.  I did crafts for one day, too.  I thought we did a pretty good job finding 3 days to volunteer when previously we were planning on no days.  (Not that we're unwilling, mind you.  We just weren't asked.)

So that alone made for a busy week.

- Teancom turned 7!  Sunday was Tank's birthday.  I'll post about that separately.  We did a bunch of prep work for his day, including making a pinata as a family effort.  It was something of a failure, but it hung by a rope and all 3 kids got a chance to hit it before it fell apart, so in that sense it was an epic win!

Before I post the pictures, imagine in your mind a pinata monkey.  You're 7 years old and you see it at the store.  You want it bad.  You ask your father for it and he says no.  You then complain to your mother, and she suggests that you can make a homemade one.  Realizing you have no other options, you consent to the homemade route.  You have high hopes that it will look exactly like that pinata you saw at the store.

Then you start to make it.  With balloons.  Without experience.  It's fun, and it's messy, and everyone's helping, but it starts looking like ... a bear.  Not like a monkey.  Your dreams are dashed to pieces as it dawns on you that these amateurs have no idea what they're doing, and that this pinata is NOT a monkey.

...  Okay, his dreams weren't dashed to pieces.  I think he was pretty happy with the results, actually.  But if you can picture that monkey-bear in your mind, it'll make you smile.  Monkey-bear pinatas are hilarious.

- We spent all day Saturday making a scrapbook for our awesome beach house hosts, the Deans.  It took a lot of time, but the whole family pitched in and we had a great time making it.  It was nice to say Thank You in some way, especially since they told us that we couldn't re-pay them in any form.  We convinced them to come over to dinner by telling them that the kids were excited to make them dinner.  They said yes for the kids.  And true to their word, the kids helped with a lovely dinner.

Also, it was Tank's birthday, so having the Deans with us made it feel like a party.

- Rob was called to the High Council in our stake.  Not sure if this is exciting or not, but it's interesting.  I'll have to write that up as its own post, too.

- The boys peed on the downstairs rug today.  I was off doing interpreting stuff, and when I came home the house was really quiet.  Miciah started yapping my ear off and I was wondering why until I realized that she was lonely.  The boys stayed in their room all day long, from 10:30ish until 8:30 when Elijah called me into the room because Tank was crying his eyes out.  It was a really long day for those two.

And rightly so.

Still, I showed some compassion and we let the boys have about an hour out in the world before sending them to bed.

What is the most fun about this is how ticked off Rob was.  He doesn't get upset often, and he's the biggest push-over when it comes to discipline.  He likes to let the kids off easy (whereas I can draw a pretty hard line.  We balance each other out, I guess).  Not this time!  He was MAD.  It always makes me giggle when Rob gets mad, because it's so rare and so out of character for him.  The boys were wise and didn't push their luck.  They didn't want to remind Dad that he was still upset.

...  Hee hee.  They peed on the rug.  That's hilarious.

- I spent all day interpreting today.  Running around from job to job, doing my thing.  It was awesome, but I was tired by the end.  I came home and took a nap.

The End!  I hope this tides you over until I get the vacation post finished.  :)

St. Augustine Trip - Random stories

Well, our Florida trip is done.  Here are some randomness highlights:

- We took this trip in our 2001 Toyota Corolla.  It's teeny, but that's fine.  The kids are now totally used to driving in the little car (the other day Miciah said, "Mom, why do you call it 'the little car'?  We only have 1 car.  Why not just call it 'the car'?"  I hadn't thought about that in years.  At one point we had 2 cars, and the Corolla was the littler one.  I guess the distinction just stuck).  When we first starting using the Corolla for long trips, it was difficult.  The kids were younger, they were all used to having their own space, and there were 2 car seats to shove into the back seat.  But that was almost 2 years ago.  We took a gamble that this trip would work out fine.  And it did.

We stopped and saw some old Cincinnati friends who now live in North Carolina.  As we were getting back in the car to leave, the 11-year-old said, "You drove here in this?"  Yep.  "Where did you put your stuff?"  In the trunk.  "Where did you sit?"  In the seats.

Her mind was blown.

That little car now has 160,000+ miles on it.  We want it to be Miciah's first car, so it just has to last a few more years!

- We stayed in a lot of hotels.  This trip was half work and half play (hence, nearly the entire thing was paid for.  Free trips are AWESOME!), so Rob visited with clients in Augusta, GA and Gainesville, FL.  We stayed in Marriott hotels.  Rob and I still walk into every hotel he stays in and say, "Do you remember traveling when we were kids?  It was like Motel 8's and Best Westerns.  The Red Roof Inn was the "nice" hotel.  Can you believe you get to stay in Marriott hotels when you travel?!  That's amazing!"  Apparently the secret to thinking things are amazing is to set your bar really low.

Anyways, my favorite part of the hotel stays is when we paid for our own hotel in Winter Haven, FL (where Legoland is).  It was not, of course, a Marriott, because it was on our own dime.  As we were walking to our room, Elijah said, "This is our hotel?  This is a nasty hotel.  Why couldn't we stay in a Marriott?"  Come on, we paid $80 for this hotel!  And cue the "When I was a kid / You should be more grateful" speech.

Our kids are hotel snobs.

- I love to travel and dream.  I told Rob, "We could live here" about 50 times.  Augusta, for instance, was beautiful, green, and comfortable.  It's not a city so much as a really big suburbia.  I loved it.  But I doubt it has a Deaf community to speak of, so it's out.  St. Augustine, on the other hand, does!  I SO would love to move there.  Other than the fact that I don't particularly like the heat, sun, sand, or salt water.  Those are minor details.  Deaf community, including Deaf Mormons?!  Yes, please!

- We swam a lot.  Like, a lot.  Well, I didn't.  I mostly sat by the pool / on the beach and watched the kids swim.  They are huge fans of the water.  My favorite pool quote came from Teancom, and the conversation went like this:
Me:  Teancom, don't run around the pool.
Tank:  I'm not running.  I'm speed walking.
I look at Tank sideways.
He looks at me sideways.
Me:  Fine.  Don't speed walk around the pool.
(Older woman sitting by the pool giggles.)

- We all got sunburns, at varying degrees.  The kids were a little sun drunk for a good day after our Day at the Beach (on July 4th!  Complete with BBQ'ed hotdogs!  We're so American).  Rob's back was so sunburned that he went to bed that night shivering, which alarmed me somewhat.

Then there was me.  I tried super duper hard to avoid the sun on Independence Day.  We were at the beach for 7 hours, and I was under our tent most of that time, but I must have been standing half in the shade, half out for part of it, because my legs from the knees down were SO red by the end of the day.  My legs swelled up to 9-month pregnant size, particularly my left leg, which was obviously hit harder.  And for about 4 days, in the morning when I got out of bed my legs from the calves down cramped up bad.  Like, crying and sitting back down before trying again bad.

This, however, was totally fascinating to me.  I didn't know that those were symptoms of a sunburn.  Sun poisoning, people kept telling me.  I watched it, made sure I wasn't showing other symptoms.  It was a neat experience for me.  "Check out what happened!  Have you ever heard of that happening?  Crazy, right?!"

I wore jeans the entire rest of the trip.  ...  I brought exactly 1 pair of pants.

Elijah's sunburn came on our last day when he decided to swim in the pool for 5 hours without the swim shirt he'd been wearing all summer (swim shirts are genius).  I didn't push hard enough for him to wear it, and I didn't even think about sunscreen.  He was hurting for a while.  Poor kid.

- The kids were ready to come home.  We left Gainesville after Rob was done with his clients at around 1:00 p.m.  Immediately the kids said, "Can we drive the entire way home tonight?"  It's 11.5 hours according to the GPS, we told them.  And Dad's company will pay for the hotel stay.  And we can make it a short drive tomorrow.  They all said, "So?"

So we went for it.  We didn't make it in GPS's overly-optimistic time, but we were home by 1:30 a.m.  So, that's pretty good.  Other than Atlanta traffic, we made really good time.  The kids were super motivated to drive the whole way.  Their potty breaks were hyper short, and they didn't beg to get out of the car.  They got along and were happy and quiet.  Sweet!

About 4 hours from home we decided we would be happy to stop for the night.  We asked the kids how they felt about it.  We explained that the next day would only be a short drive, and we could be home by noon.  "What do you think?" we asked.
Miciah:  Okay, that's fine.
Elijah:  Yeah, that's fine.
Teancom:  Yep, great.  Only 4 more hours.  Keep driving.

It was too adorable.

The drive wasn't bad, but because it was so late, the problem was that I laid into Rob and detailed all the ways he falls short.  This is what I do when I'm tired.  Usually when I notice that I'm doing it, I just go to bed.  This time, I just kept talking.  That time I went to give him a hug and he didn't give me a good hug back because he doesn't love me.  That time I wanted him to be excited about planning a future trip with me and he wasn't excited, so that probably means that he hates me and doesn't want to spend time with me ever again.  That time I tried to tell him something and he was checking his e-mail, and he didn't say, "Just a second," so he doesn't want to listen to me when I talk to him because he probably thinks I'm not worth listening to.

I think the last hour and a half was pure irrational, negative drivel.  Go, Tamra!

And that was all the randomness from the trip that I wanted to report.  Actual trip report, with pictures, to come.

An Old Post

Well, I'm getting ready to put together a post about our trip to Florida, and here's this post that I wrote nearly a month ago, just sitting here.  Huh.

Well, here it is, in a slightly revised form.  Vacation sum-up to follow shortly (I say optimistically):

June Happenings

My parents came in for my graduation, as did my in-laws, and my Mom stayed with us for almost a month.  We hung out and mostly just chilled.  At the end of that time, on the kids' last day of school, she took Elijah back to California with her, to be returned pre-July.  (His ticket is now set for next Saturday.)  Two days after school was out, we drove up to Toledo to hang out for Memorial Day weekend, and then left for Cincinnati without Miciah.  She's been there for almost two weeks now, and she'll come back on Monday.

My Job

I graduated on a Sunday, had a job interview with CSD (an interpreting agency here in Cincinnati) on Monday, and I was working on Tuesday.  It was amazing!  I love, love, love my job.  The world is fairly nice to interpreters - people seem to give the position respect and understand that it's a process.  Also, it's incredibly fascinating.  I get to follow people deep into their jobs and see the inner workings of the system.  I feel like I'm like Dorothy, pulling away the curtain to find the Wizard, except what I find is always delightful and wonderful!

As a curious person, I feel like this is the perfect job.

Additionally, it's very part-time.  For now, and maybe forever, this is great.  I've enjoyed re-claiming my stay-at-home-mom-ness.  It was weird at first, but I'm liking it more and more as I have time and mental energy to dedicate to it.

Speaking of, a benefit of being out of school is that my brain isn't so tired all the time.  Mental energy?  I have some and to spare.  I like it.

Rob Ran a 5K

When we were up in Toledo, Rob ran a few miles.  A friend in his parents' ward recognized him and said to him at church, "Hey, I saw you running.  There's a 5K tomorrow.  Wanna run it with us?"  Well, why not?  I thought about it until they said it would be $25 a person.  I graciously allowed Rob to run it and went along to support him.  Because that's what good wives do.

I was impressed with his time:  26 minutes and change.  He'd never run one before.  He hadn't trained for it.  He just woke up in the morning and ran it!  It was awesome.

...  And that's as far as the post got.  I was going to write more about Elijah and why he was in California and all that.  I still might.  You never know.