Day 2 Day With the Carraway's: Summer Vacation

This post is coming a little late, as we went on vacation over 2 months ago, but better late than never, right?!

Well, June 20th we loaded up the car (the rental Kia Sedona, that is. See previous post about me wrecking the Pathfinder!) and began the 15hr drive to Destin, FL. I say we "load up the car" as if we just piled everything in and drove off in an instant. Not the case. Those of you with small children know what I'm talking about. I spent about 10 days packing for this trip and organizing so that we could "load up the car" on the 20th and drive off. But anyway, we drove to Alabama and spent the night. The drive there was rather uneventful, other than fighting, screaming, wanting out, etc. Staying in the hotel for one night is when the fun began!!

We had two rooms and decided to put the big boys with daddy in one room and me with Graham in the other. Daddy said he had quite a good night, that was not the case for me. Graham was up ALL night long. Nursing, crying, nursing, squirming and repeat. I don't think he liked being out of his normal surroundings. But, we survived. The next morning we loaded up again and started the final 3-4hrs of our drive.

The boys were becoming increasingly tired of being in the car. They had eaten so many Smarties and Dum Dums that they no longer responded to them as my bribe for good behavior in the car. They were also quite tired of their movies we brought for them to watch. I guess Tom and Jerry and Baby Einstein loose their appeal after about 12hrs on repeat. Don't worry, they had lost their appeal to mommy and daddy, too. We were tired of hearing them!!

So, what better way to liven up our last few hours on a two lane highway in the middle of nowhere?? Well, Daddy kills Peter Rabbit!!! Yes, you heard me right. We are driving behind a truck pulling a trailer and then all the sudden something hits our windshield and leaves a wonderful mark. It seemed that the truck had actually hit the rabbit and it flew up onto our car. LOVELY!! Guess what's for dinner, boys??? RABBIT! Gave us all a good laugh. :)

We also had some other good laughs along the way, too. Patrick had decided that his carseat hurt his penis. So, every little while he would yell out, "My penis hurts!!" We all laughed, as there was nothing I could to about it. His carseat was buckled properly and not too tight. I kept telling Robert that he may need to have the "adjusting" talk with his son rather soon. Maybe Patrick needed to "adjust" himself, that was the only reason I could think of as to why his carseat was hurting.

So, we finally make it to Destin, get checked in at the condo, do the HUGE grocery run, get tucked into bed and start our first official day of family vacation!!! The first day went rather well. The boys loved the pool and mommy loved getting some alone time by the water while the boys were napping. But, then Tuesday came. We were all ready to head out to the pool when Patrick fell/jumped off the couch and hit his head on the corner of the coffee table. Lots of screaming and blood followed. So, we got him settled down, cleaned up and debated on whether to take him to Urgent Care or not. It's pretty funny how when it's your own child all of your knowledge totally goes out the window!! If it were someone else's child I would have known exactly what to do- go get staples! But, since it was my own child, the RN in me totally vanished and the worried mommy took over. We ended up spending the better part of the day in the Urgent Care getting two staples and going to buy LOTS of treats at the gas station. Ring lolipops and Dum Dums, to be exact. This leads me to our next interesting vacation experience.

We are standing in line to pay for said goodies and a young man (mid 20's??) keeps looking at us. He finally gathers up the nerve to talk.

Man: Uh, ma'am, uhhh do you know that your son has, uh, something in his head????

Me: Oh, well, we just got staples in our head, didn't we, Patrick?! (trying to be light hearted and postitive, so as to not freak out Patrick again.) He fell and cut his head pretty badly, but it's all better now, right Patrick?!

Man: (looking rather confused) Oh.

What I really wanted to say: No, you idiot. I didn't notice that my child's head is stapled back together. Or, well, he got ahold of the stapler this morning. I was wondering why it was empty! Better yet, totally freak out and start screaming, "What happened to my child???"

But anyway, Patirck's head was fixed and we had to spend the rest of the day inside, out of the water. He did not seem to be in any pain and was pretty proud of his staples.

On Wednesday evening we decided to head down to the beach in our "picture outfits" to take our annual beach photos. Everything started off quite well until out of nowhere Patrick's nose starts dripping blood. We think he and Marshall bumped heads or something. So, we try to get that settled down and clean up the nice once-white-polo-now-blood-stained-polo and get our pictures done. The kids all have a blast and just as last year, I am wondering why in the world I forgot to bring a change of dry clothes. They always end up in the water and I have no towels or clean clothes for the drive back, as we go to a rather quiet, secluded part of the beach to take pics. But, we did get some nice shots. :)

Thursday rolls around. It's been a nice week. Boys have had a blast, mommy and daddy got some date nights in and then it's ant bite time. Awesome....not really. We come in from the pool and Patrick keeps talking a bug that went down Marshall's neck. I blow it off, not really making much sense to me at the time. Then, Marshall starts squirming and freaking out. I look down his shirt, take it off and sure enough, there's ants. And, there are ant bites, too. Ugh. Now Patrick is basically, in his own 3yr old way, saying, 'I told you so." But, got it all under control. If only my children were not totally unafraid of every bug on the planet!!

We spend Friday enjoying our last day and packing for the drive home. We decide to do it in one day, instead of two as we did on the drive down. We also had a little birthday party for Marshall, as his second birthday was just a couple of days after we got back to Cincinnati. On Saturday we load up, again, and start to drive. The drive goes basically as planned. Lots of fighting, screaming, wanting out, etc. We stop at a Wendy's a couple hours outside of Cincinnati to eat dinner and put the boys in their PJ's. I am changing the boys and Patrick got a little frustrated because he couldn't get his clothes off. What does he do?? He begins to say, "Dammit, ugh...dammit, dammit..." with increasing frustration. Hmmm.....where did he hear that?? Couldn't be mommy now, could it?? I tried to turn around, so as to not let him see that I was about to burst out laughing. It was pretty funny!! I decide to ignore the whole thing, as if I make a big deal out of what he said, he will keep saying it.

We pull into our driveway late Saturday night, exhausted, but so happy to be home and even happier that we made the trip in one day. We had a blast at the beach and look forward to going again, but let's be honest, there is nothing better than your own home and bed after a long day of driving!!

Our sweet Marshall