Vacation Chronicles

Well, we’re finally back from our vacation to New Jersey. It’s the first time Mommy and Daddy have had a real vacation since before Leah was born, and is therefore (obviously) the first real vacation the kids have ever had! All things considered, they reacted wonderfully to the whole thing.

We started off at about 7:00 p.m. on Friday, 24 August, determined to drive through the night as completely as possible. While we actually did stop to rest, a few times, Mommy and Daddy were able to trade off well enough that we made the almost thirteen-hour trip in a mere eighteen hours—not bad, considering some of the stops were necessary ones (food, gas, etc.).

The first half of our vacation was a trip to the beach—Ocean Beach, Unit III, to be exact. Daddy’s grandparents bought a bungalow there, back in the ’80s, and when the kids’ Great-Grandpa passed away in 1997, he left it to his four children, three of whom still co-own it and rent it out, most of the summer. While most of what happened there is recorded in videos (coming soon!), there are a few still photos documenting our trip. (One fun aside: David somehow came down with an ear infection and pink eye while we were there, so for the rest of our vacation, we were giving him meds, four times a day. Not the most fun thing to have to do.)

The second half was a bit more homey, as we spent the next few days at Grandma and Pop’s house. Amidst the constant parade of friends and family wanting to see (and bring presents for!) Leah and David, we even got some time to take the kids in the pool and the hot tub (the latter turned down to bathwater temperature, natch) and for Mommy and Daddy to get in their first real date sans kids, in over a year!

(One interesting highlight of the trip: Pop’s minivan got pummeled in a wreck—it was parked, with no one inside, thank goodness—so we’re still waiting to hear the full extent of the damages. However, since both kids’ car seats were inside, the insurance company declared them both totaled, since it’s too hard to determine if they’re still usable and imagine the liability suits if they weren’t! In other words, we had to get two new car seats—both strictly top-of-the-line, per State Farm’s instructions—so we could bring the kids home!)

Finally, since David had his six-month doctor appointment scheduled for yesterday (and we wanted the kids’ existing pediatrician to take care of it, if for no other reason than to say good-bye), we spent the night in our old house, in Noblesville. We were a little worried, since we just dropped some $2,300 to re-carpet the whole house, but everything turned out okay, even though David accidentally got a large blood spot on the living room floor. (Mommy got it all out—it was still fresh. More importantly, David was basically okay; he’d just gotten a cut on each of his pinky toes, which the pediatrician said was probably from wearing mis-sized shoes at some point during our vacation. He’s already healing nicely, so don’t be too worried.) ☺

Anyway, it’s been a wonderful yet exhausting couple of weeks. It’s certainly good to be home, but it’s going to take us a few days to get back into the swing of things. At least we got a severely needed recharge, plus we’ve got some updated photos and footage of the kids! Ciao for now….