Vacation to Remember...

Its always hard to tell a story when people are anticipating it...I always have the distinct feeling I might let someone down and I don't do well with that...However, let down or not, I said I would tell the story (and I do want to preserve at least some of the details for our family record.) I will not be telling the location of where we went...on the off chance that someone googles it and my blog comes up. We have no ill will towards this place on the coast...you just won't find us entering the city limits again in this lifetime...

I must preface this by saying...when we started planning this vacation, we planned on going to Gulf Shores...Then we started thinking about the drive, the fact that BJ still has a nursing baby, and BJ had heard this place was great from one of her friends...who she no longer speaks too.:)

We started off our week staying at Moody Gardens...we loved it, loved schlitterbahn, loved the pool, etc...We had a great stay. Then on Monday we got a late checkout and headed out to our beach house...we were so excited. I must say I got the first sinking feeling when the lady we were renting from called on my cell and said, "Did I mention you needed to bring bottled water...our water is drinkable, but I don't think you would want to..." I hung up and told Tony who laughed and said, "We aren't leaving the country are we?"

When we got to the house...I could tell driving up it looked a bit rougher than what I had anticipated. Too bad my fears were immediately confirmed when I opened the door to get out of our car and was punched in the face with a smell that made me look around to see if perhaps our home was next to a dairy farm.

The house was on stilts, you parked your car underneath it...as we walked up the stairs, Tony said, "if this thing collapses its going to total our car." I did not acknowledge him because I was already doing my best Pollyanna impersonation trying to point out the positves... Like, look at all these windows...and look at this TV...its so cute and tiny, kind of like a postage stamp.

From there...it got funny...
* While I was at Walmart blowing our entire vacation budget on Febreeze candles Tony called and said, "there's a 4-runner doing 90 down the beach...and it keeps stopping to do donuts in front of our house...I think I will wait until you get back to take the boys down to the beach...so one of us can be watching for cars."

* Every other house had a boardwalk leading down from their house to the beach...ours had no boardwalk, instead it had a grass path where the grass was up to our waist that we had to walk through...not necessarily a big deal, except that it was infested with mosquitoes...Benjamin had 22 on his back the first night and he had been sprayed. I called the landlady and she said I will have someone out to cut it down in the morning...A guy showed up and did not appear to be doing much except revving his weed eater continuously in the same place...I thought I would go out and show him where we would like the grass to be cut...I walked out said "good morning" saw his large tattoo (across his neck) that said "Kill them" and said "Thanks for all you are doing " and went back inside.

* The beach was a little rough, what with the speeding cars, dead fish, rusty nails and all, but we did love playing in the waves. One evening the guys were a ways out with the kids laughing and having a blast and BJ and I were sitting there talking about this part being so great...when one of the locals walked by and said you better tell those guys out there to be careful, they have those kids awful close to where all the jelly fish are...

* Our house rocked back and forth every time someone walked down the hall...literally...lean...whump to one side...lean ...whump to the other side.

* The first day I was totally sicked out that no one was flushing the toilet...seriously...that kind of stuff grosses me out. I must of flushed it 15 times the first day we were there...until I stayed in there one time and watched it fill up...with dark yellow water...

* Tony had to work on the fridge to get it cooling...he then went to work on the AC to get it cooling. He asked if I wanted him to go into town and get a weed eater so he could cut down our path...I said, "babe, we are on vacation." He replied, "Oh yeah, I forgot..."


* Instead of bedside tables we had a washer and dryer...literally bedside. Tony had been concerned that it would be too quiet for him to sleep. Not a problem...we fired up the dryer and it sounded like we were sleeping on a runway at DFW.

Honestly...as I type this list, countless other memories are coming to mind....some better acted out than written out. It goes without saying, but if this vacation had been perfect, it would of most likely been forgotten....As is,it will most likely go down as one of our favorites. If we had it to redo we would do it all again. We laughed so hard, had many deep conversations where all 8 of us were sitting on the same couch (only one place to sit in the entire living room), enjoyed
many a homecooked meal of cereal and hotdogs (things that could be made without water), cracked up at each other sprinting through the tall grass slapping ourselves in order to avoid mosquitoes, and all breathed a collective sigh of relief when our husbands said, "let's get out of here."

All in all it was terribly wonderful...certainly a vacation we will always remember.