July 7 - Lil' Nut Brown Hare and the family are beach bound!! California Love kicked it off on XM, a good omen. Thank you to Nick and the rent-a-rottweilers, Ruger and Maximus for watching the house.
July 7 - Update: So far so good. Haven't seen any sharks yet. Condo is really nice. Only weird thing is that you bring your stuff up with grocery carts. Thought I picked up an empty seashell but it had a critter still in it. Put it in my pocket. Pulled it out to show Lloyd, a head popped out. I never learn.
July 8 - Observations from the tenth floor balcony (around 12:30 AM):
1. There's a lone kid out there digging a massive foxhole. Midnight. Dedication, or sketchy parenting, I'm not sure.
2. People are running in the sand. How is this possible? I can barely walk in it. I'm like new born Bambi until I get to the hard part by waters edge.
3. People are swimming RIGHT NOW. "Come on in, the water's great!" Famous last words.
4. I'm going to get one of those ocean sounding machines to sleep by when we get back. Very peaceful.
July 8 - 8:00 AM - A pretty day
July 9 - Around 12:30 AM
Observations from the sand & surf (I do love people watching):
1. We sat near a woman that had on the exact same hat AND swimsuit type as the one that slapped Chief Brody in Jaws. (Mrs. Kintner). I pointed her out to Lloyd, he laughed, because she looked just like her. I looked around to see if she had a little kid. With a raft.
2. I watched 3 out 5 women on a bachelorette trip fall like dominoes into a large, extremely noticable hole to China that Cole and others dug near the shoreline. Fortunately, drunk people rarely seem to get hurt. Not one of them spilled their Strawberita's...so, high fives all around, in the hole.
3. I had to get into the water, it was hot. I grabbed a piece of seaweed to move it out of my way. It was actually a long thin green fish. We were both a little surprised. More so it, when I flung it.
4. The short walk down to the beach with all of your stuff in the morning takes 2 minutes, everyone is carrying something, joy is in their hearts. The one on the way back, later that afternoon, is through the uphill dunes of the sahara, 200 yards might as well be 5 miles, and somehow you have twice as much to carry back as you went down with. How is this possible?
July 9 - 8:30 AM
LSU got up early this morning and beat Alabama in best tent placement. They are now tied up at 1-1. #SEC
July10th - 12:30 AM - Observations from the 10th floor neighborhood:
1. Around 8, about half a cup of coffee in, Katie and I are bonding on the 10th floor balcony overlooking the beach, when she pops this one out: "You don't see a lot of squirrels around here." I side eyed her....Yeah, you really don't see that many sea squirrels or palm tree squirrels, anymore. Her: "yeah, that's true. Oh. I forgot to tell you why I'm up...there's something burning inside". I'm not prepared for that with only 1/2 a cup of coffee. I'm a whole cup disaster person, really.
2. No. There was nothing burning inside our place. The Filipino neighbors on the other hand...had problems. I wasn't exactly dressed to go find out what was going on (women, you know what I mean), so Lloyd had to go and investigate.
Here is his report: Met the neighbors. Front door was open. I knocked. There may or may not have been 15 people in there (sleeps 6). There were pallets of beds everywhere and lots of shoes. I asked if everything was ok, they had the balcony doors opened too, airing the place out because they may or may not have burned up the owners cookware with their breakfast of God knows what. It was bad. Real bad. (Seven hours later, it was still bad. I am unimpressed with his investigative techniques. I personally would have asked...Soooo...didja kill anyone and you're trying to dispose of the evidence? What's going on up in here?).
3. I jokingly asked Lloyd to get the little vanilla scented Christmas trees that you hang in the car because of #2. I figured he would actually get febreze or something. Nope. We now have vanilla scented trees hanging from the faux palm trees in our condo. I am pretty surprised at how well they have worked.
July 10 - 4:45 PM
Guess
who was picked to do the alligator show in front of 100 people at
Fudpucker's? They gave us a complimentary 5x7 to commemorate our son having his shirt tucked into his underwear. #soproud — with Lloyd
July 10 - 11:30 PM
Observations from around town:
1. While leaving for an adventurous day about town, we noticed that our mysterious neighbors had vacated suddenly. I suppose nearly burning down the condo will shorten a stay. Or????
2. The Fudpuckers picture. I swear we had NO IDEA his underwear was like that. His back was to us the entire time during the show. He turned around for the picture and Lloyd and I were both thinking oh sweet little baby Jesus, NOOO!! So, there you go.
3. We have a new family member. His name is Jordan. MJ, for short. A picture will be posted below. So, crab hunting has been mostly unsuccessful each night. Pretty tough when your net and your bucket get stolen by the "bad kids" that sit unsupervised 5 chairs down. Last night, Lloyd caught a white crab, bare handed and was only pinched 3 times, but without a bucket to put it in, it's not like he could trot that back to the condo a mile away.
So, we "borrowed" the mop bucket from the condo and went out on our crab quest tonight. Still...no net. We should have bought another net when we were out earlier, but the truth is we were pretty sick of each other by then and the thought of going to another store was more than we could handle.
We walked another mile, an hour has passed, no luck, Cole and Lloyd have ventured at least 30-40 feet out into the surf...Cole spots it, Lloyd makes the grab and starts screaming and running towards the bucket. It was no ordinary crab, it was the Michael Jordan of crabs. The hermit crab with the basketball shell. We caught a store bought crab IN THE OCEAN. Now we have to keep it. And buy a bunch of stuff to take care of it. What are the odds on that?
our store bought crab found in the ocean.
July 11 - 9:30 While waiting for some crabs
July 12th - 12:10 AM - Observations of full moon madness. Yesterday was our last full day at the beach. The plan was simple, hang out at the beach all day, get dressed, family pictures near sunset, eat dinner, and relax surf side one last night. We accomplished most of those things, but we are not "easy button" people. Oh no. No.
I'm too tired to type it up, I have the whole drive home later today. Meanwhile, I can hear my sleep talking son in the next room saying nonchalantly, "Shark". It's cute, in a creepy way.
July 12th 3:30 PM - Observations of super moon madness, Destin style Part I. A last simple day was planned: beach, pictures, dinner and relax.
1. The day was stunning...sunny, with a very light breeze, the water was super clear. It was 7 hours of perfect. That is, until we rode back up to the room with 75lbs of beach gear and the elevator doors opened. Have you ever smelled chum? No? Me either, but I've been to a few harbours and they were cutting up dead fish and throwing it into a giant bucket for some Godforsaken reason and THAT was the smell that we were assaulted with from the elevators. It only got worse as we walked towards our condo. Much much worse, the girls were gagging, I thought Kayla might cry. So, new neighbors were making dinner. We never seem to get neighbors that make pizza, you know? Just stuff that smells like a garbage dump on a hot sunny day.
2. Momma wants a new family portrait. We made it out to the state park, coordinated outfits, and each of us looking our personal best, no easy feat, that. Remember that perfect weather from earlier? Gone, from the moment we left the dead fish smelling 10th floor. That's cool, I can deal with a storm coming in. I'm pretty good with Photoshop. Choppy water? may be a little tougher to edit. Flattened seagrass due to 40 mile an hour winds? Tough fix, but not impossible. Kayla, Katie and my hair looking like Cousin Itt's from the Addams family, or 3 feet horizontal? Internal camera lenses fogging up? Blowing sand? Kids fighting, Lloyd yelling at Cole? Cole acting like the worst Betty White ever and no Snickers in sight? Not fixable. Every other night we were there, picture taking weather was perfect. I want to take pictures, it's the perfect storm. About right. At this point, I'm thinking if we feed everyone, it will all get better. Nope. Wrong again.
Stay tuned. The best/worst....END is in sight.July 12th - 7:30 PM - Observations of super moon madness, Destin style, part II. THE END.
1. We weren't all speaking by the time we reached the restaurant, poor Cole was still being such a butt that Lloyd told him "son, I love you, but you make me drink a little" ( ala Ellen Degeneres) A dad near us laughed, and said that his kids make him drink a little, too. I was feeling sorry for poor little Coleman at that point, so I had him sit next to me, and we all ended up having a nice meal after only an hour and a half long wait.
2. Back at the condo, instead of the planned relaxation, I decided to start packing up to leave. Cole took "Hermie", formerly known as MJ out of his bucket to let him walk around under the careful supervision of Lloyd while he was deflating all the water rings.
I personally thought this was a terrible idea because we had decided to try to find a place to take Hermie, as we just weren't up for taking care of a hermit crab. We researched enough to know that we needed to buy him more stuff, and get him some friends. Lloyd found out that he was a large purple pincher, and we really felt like we were going to be able to find him a good home.
So, there Cole was, laying in the floor, playing with the Hermie for at least 20 minutes, singing "crab crab crab...I caught a crabby crab crab crab." I'd passed through the living room approximately 20 times with stuff I was packing up and told Cole at LEAST 10 times to put that crab up. Put the crab back in the bucket. Put Hermie away. Put the crab up, Cole. Put him up. Bucket. Crab. NOW. Please put Hermie in the bucket.
Did he do that? No, he did not. What happened next is not in the least bit surprising, but happened, it did.
Apparently, Hermie got tired of being manhandled, or maybe he didn't like the "crabby crab crab" song, because he took his large purple pincher and pinched Cole's finger with everything he had. Have you ever slammed your fingers in a car door? It hurts so bad you can't even scream at first? Yeah...that's how it went down. Cole opened his mouth wide to scream...nothing came out...at first. But when he did scream, it was BLOOD CURDLING!! Given our fishy chum eating neighbor's...GOOD...I hope it woke them up. He screamed a good long time too. Loooong time.
During the first half a minute of screaming, Cole was hysterically waving his hand at approximately 200 miles an hour in an attempt to get Hermie off. He flung him off alright. Fortunately, it was onto the carpeting, and he only suffered a minor crack in his shell. I feel terrible about that.
I swear to you all, I positively lost it in a National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation "newel post is fixed with a chainsaw" kinda way. I was so sick of the neighbor's cooking smelly cr@p, gagging on it every time we opened the door, got off the elevator, or just woke up. I just wanted a nice family picture...but nope, can't have that. I never wanted a hermit crab. I definitely didn't want it loose in the living room, it's not like it's a fluffy cute kitten. I told him to put it up numerous times. So, I completely lost it and I yelled at him that THIS is why I told him to put it up. THIS is what crabs do. They eat, they poop, they make more crabs, and they PINCH THINGS. That's their goal in life! They spend their life searching for things to pinch! Oh, look! Seaweed! PINCH! THAT'S ALL THEY DO SON!!! I even imitated the pinchers with my fingers. (Keep in mind, he's still screaming). Blood pressure, through the roof. I had to go out on the balcony to calm down. Definitely not getting mom of the year.
3. (Takes a deep breath.) Cole was fine, a little ice, an advil and a healthier respect for pinching sea creatures, possibly. Sometimes the most valuable lessons are the hardest. Hermie was ok, too. The bummer was that none of the surf shops or pet stores would take him after multiple phone calls this morning. They suggested taking him to the state park where we tried to get the pictures done the day before. We sat in a long line to get into Henderson State Park, and the lady at the window told us that hermit crabs don't live there, we needed to go over the mid bay bridge, as that's where the hermit crabs lived. *sigh*. Of course.
4. I hate bridges. They make me sick. Anxiety...I already knew we had to go over the bridge to get home, but the crab had been traveling around in a solo cup in our back seat for about an hour already. The plans were to take him to the state park, find a good spot, hit the outlet malls and THEN go over that big bridge on the way home. But with Hermie in the solo cup in the back seat with a little bit of dasani, and us feeling pretty bad about not being able to get a good home for him, and the horrible events from last night, well...we were going the distance on this one. Hermie was going to LIVE, I tell you!! Nothing else could get weird. Right? If you think that, please go back and read the last 5 days worth of posts.
So, 10 slooow miles later, we're on this huge bridge, I feel like puking. There's a storm overhead. Cole yells out...tornado!! What??? That's right...a waterspout. Tornado on water. Fear of bridges? What fear of bridges. I love me some bad weather! I had my good camera in the front seat (first piece of good luck in nearly 24 hours), rolled the window down, stuck my head and snapped away from the top of the bridge. I couldn't get a decent picture of my family, but I got a waterspout! It's going above the fireplace.
5. Back off the bridge, we found another state park with sand, rocks, and evidence of other hermit crabs. So, with rain and lightning nearby, Cole said goodbye to Hermie, who seemed pretty pleased to be away from us. Can't say as I blame him. This is his new home.
6. We really had an awesome vacation, we love the beach. There were a few not so awesome moments, too, but that's normal for us. We are so thankful to have been graced with a good sense of humor...it will get you through most anything. We've really appreciated all of the likes, comments, laughs and the opportunity to get to share our vacation with you. You've all been really great!!
We're home. We're all still alive. We made it.
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