Labor Day-Destin Trip

Happy 9-9-09!!!
It’s Wednesday, which is good news. Because that means we have a short work week. Ben has his 18 month well-child check up Friday, and that means I get to leave work a couple hours early. SO… hopefully this week will go by fast? Although… now that Labor Day weekend is over I really have nothing in particular to look forward to in the very near future. We are hoping to go to TN in October to Dollywood with my cousin Laura and her family, and then my parents are coming for Christmas… so I guess I should be excited about that stuff! This weekend was a BLAST and seriously what I needed, but it marked the end of summer for us. That’s okay though, I DO love me some Fall-time and it was a VERY fun summer. I hope it was for my little guy. I know he enjoyed swimming and being in the water a lot this summer.

So we went to Destin, FL this weekend with the Terry’s, the Elton’s, the Clint, the Jiznin and her friend Chris. We got off work early on Friday, and then picked the Elton’s (Hillary & Mark) up at their respective locations. Mark’s was at Georgia Tech and getting out of downtown was a BEAST. It took a ridiculously long time to get out of town and even longer to get to Destin! BUT, we had a fun ride down. Ben did well and only fussed a little. But we let him run around occasionally and we took plenty of potty stops. Especially one particular humorous stop we made in the back woods of Alabama for me to go potty, even though I’d only gone like maybe an hour prior to that! It was a small gas station of the road we were traveling on and I went in and saw two guys standing near the door to the bathroom, so I waited for a second thinking that they were in line, and then it occurred to me that they were just hanging out…in the gas station. I looked around to see where the actual door was for the restroom and found it was cracked open and thought “oh, they must not be waiting…” and when I opened the door my life flashed before my eyes. Okay, not really but a man on the toilet did who yelled at me did. SO… I apologized quickly while shutting the door and stood for a minute… waiting… until I decided that I didn’t want to be there anymore. It smelled of fried something and I didn’t want him to see me- the girl who walked in on him doing his thing. Plus, I didn’t want to be sitting doing MY business and someone walk in on me because the door didn’t shut all the way! So I crossed my legs and ran out and told the gang what happened and stunk the car up with the smell of whatever that fried something was that stuck to me. We found a “better” bathroom down the road!!! We ate in Opp, Alabama. It was a little scary I wont lie. But I’m not judging, I just had to note that because the name amused me. It rained pretty hard on us and we saw lots of lightning. But really, it’s a beautiful drive. We saw the ITTY-BITTIEST LDS church building I’ve EVER seen. It was seriously the size of maybe two bathrooms and a kitchen in a stake center put together! Anyway, we got to Destin first before the other car (The Terry’s, Clint and Jennifer) and got all settled in. Ben was asleep by this point, so I stayed at the condo and waited for the other 3 to go to the store for some basic necessities for the next day. We crashed out pretty hard that night and slept well. Ben woke us up fairly early Saturday, but that was okay because we were ready to make breakfast (me and Ryan) and get to the beach. So we ate and applied sunscreen and headed out. The water was PERFECT the weather was PERFECT the company was PERFECT. Ben was a little weirded out by the sand at first and I think he thought it hurt to stand on it but he enjoyed playing it. He had to have a shovel in his hands at all times when playing in the sand. He also was a big fan of his floaties we got him. I wasn’t too sure he’d be so in to them, but he like them and wore them the whole time. He’d even say “on, on, on” when they weren’t on! He liked the water… he kept liking his mouth or the float or even the water because of the salt I guess. He didn’t like to stay out for too long, which is fine. But the water was such that he could’ve if he wanted to because it was so calm. I think it was perfect temp for us, but maybe a little too cold for him. It was a little more wavy at the shore (of course), so when we’d walk in sometimes it would slap against us and get him all wet and in his face, but he dealt with it really well. If we laughed he would too. He kept pointing at it and saying “wah-wah” too. Smart kid! As a side note, the water seriously relaxed me SO much. I can’t even explain how badly I needed that trip. I LOVE the ocean just as much as I do the mountains, and it was so good to be there and in such good conditions. Ryan had a wonderful time too and we both had fun playing or floating or splashing in the water! So, we’re still on Saturday… we went back to the condo after a few hours at the beach and ate and then put Ben down for a nap. Everyone came in at that point and put a movie on- but neither Ryan nor I could stay awake and I was starting to get a headache so we napped too! It was terrific! Some of us realized though that we didn’t sunscreen ourselves up as adequately as we thought we did. Apparently I forgot to do my back, and so did Ashley. Hillary thought she got her front side and didn’t, Jen got a little spot on her neck that caused her much pain and I apparently forgot to apply sunscreen to the lower half of Ryan’s back too! Whoops! But after our naps and eating and movie watching we went back out to the beach. By this time Jen’s friend Chris joined us. Some didn’t swim though because of the aforementioned sunburns. Ben played in the "wah-wah" again but mostly enjoyed the beach. I think he was still pretty tired from earlier that afternoon. So he hung out a lot with his peeps and enjoyed putting sand in his hair and of course ate some. After the beach me, Ryan, Ben and Jennifer went to the grocery store to get stuff for the rest of the weekend. And the others ordered pizza for us all. We ate pizza and enjoyed each other’s company and played games and stuff. We spent more time at the beach and pool the next morning and then spent the afternoon relaxing and cooking dinner. However, my little guy must’ve had his feet sunburned or something because when he woke up from his nap he was FUSSY! It took us a minute to figure it out, but we finally did and saw that his feet were VERY red and could tell it hurt him to walk, so we put aloe on his feet and on top of that his teeth were bugging him and so we also gave him some Tylenol. He perked up after a few which was good because he really was driving everyone crazy and dinner sucked because I was a little distracted by him and didn’t make it quite right. Anyway that night we walked down to the beach and then watched “Jack Frost” from MST3000 (Mystery Science Theater) and laughed and listened to the storm outside and then we all crashed HARD. Monday a few of us made one last trip out to the beach and enjoyed the peaceful warm and calm water… so beautiful and clear. I will miss that water… I already do. It was PERFECT. Then after cleaning up we headed home… on an 11 hour trip home for what should be a 6 hour drive! Traffic was bad again… and we stopped a few times. We got to visit Hillary’s house in Columbus and that was fun to see where she grewed up (some people say it like that here in the South). Besides the traffic, the trip was most excellent!!! We all decided we needed to make this an annual trip and maybe spend more than just Labor Day weekend there!
So Ben keeps biting his peeps at school. I can only deduct that it’s his teething thing going on. He doesn’t do it everyday and he doesn’t break skin, but he does leave a mark. And yesterday he did it with out being egged on or anything, they were just sitting there. Everyone keeps telling me not to worry about it, but I feel bad for the other kids and their mom’s getting mad- but I don’t know what else to do. We made a pretty big deal out of it last night when we went to get him, but he’s too little to realize after the fact what he’s done. He doesn’t do it at home… he knows better. Here’s to me praying my guts out that he’ll stop soon. At least when his teeth have all come in!
I was starting to get worried because he hadn't really expanded his vocabulary and he wouldn't repeat things even though he'd said them before and I knew he knew how to. And then all of a sudden he's saying a lot more words now! His favorite is... guess... "no". He knows how to use it right even. Beach, water, please, up, sit (seat, seat), spoon, poop, pee-pee, teeth, hair, his own name which sounds like Bee, he can "sing" the alphabet- rather he makes sounds like what we sing- but he's trying! He can say A,B,C though. He's starting to say "amen" at the end of prayers. And another favorite thing for him to do is to give Ally her treat before we leave for the day and shut her door. He sure does love her. When we were in Destin I was doing our bedtime thing Sunday night and was talking to him and stuff and I asked if he was excited to go home and go see Ally and which point he jumped up from laying down to look for her! He was really hurt when I told him she wasn't there because he'd gotten so excited.
That's all for now folks.