Day 74 There IS a Reason to Smile

Vacation is over and after spending too many hours in a car to get to a hotel, I've found it difficult to find much about which to smile! That sounds horrible, I know. I'm sure most people wouldn't be doing cartwheels to return home from sun, beach and pool, but to say I can't find anything worthy of happy thoughts is a tad ridiculous.

After packing up the car, or should I say, cramming everything from swim fins to fishing gear, seashells to driftwood, we headed out.

--By the way, the fins were great this week! They really kept the kids afloat while they practiced swimming and boy did those little urchins of mine have a blast in that pool! So, did I with our little aquatic triathlons.--

--Now, that fishing gear did me no good this time! I got nothing... Well, I did get some relaxation, peace and quiet.--

--And those shells are perfect! The kind you buy in stores everywhere else were lining the shore that was close to untouched by tourists. When we gave one to my Grandma, she lit up over it's uniqueness.--

--While I don't know where my husband found that cool piece of driftwood, I cannot wait to put it up on my wall!--

Anyway, we headed out for breakfast and a quick shopping trip to Ridemakerz and Build-A-Bear. Then it was time to hit the road.

--It was fun watching my son pick out his perfect vehicle. He knew just what he wanted and put it together with ease. Then he talked the ears off of a fellow who was also waiting for a Build-A-Bear shopper about the vehicle he created. And my daughter! She picked out the cutest little bunny and clothed her in such girly attire. So typical of my little princess. They loved it all!--

Well, we drove on and made our way to the halfway point and here I sit in the hotel bed, blogging about my unhappy day. Actually, just writing out my day has brought back a lot of memories of the trip. Memories that brought on a true smile. I suppose I need to stop selling my days short from now on and just let the smiles flow.

Day 69 Cleaver-free Monday

It IS possible for Mondays to be good days! Usually, I find them deplorable and a terrible termination to a weekend. This is especially true when the kids are in school, but just as horrible during the too short summers as it means that my husband goes off to work at a pretty cool job where they let you play billiards and video games, and leaves me to handle the housework like June Cleaver. If only I could actually moderate the house in such a TV land way, but I’m definitely a bit amiss when it comes to running the house in an apron, cooking and being neat and tidy (I do like aprons though).

Mondays are the first day of the week where I’m left to summon up my most Cleaver-esque abilities and, much to the rest of the family’s chagrin, I come nowhere close to succeeding. I’m pretty sure I’ve discussed this before... But today, I don’t care if I’m June or not. Because today is another day on vacation. 

My sister and her guy flew in today after being held up by Hurricane Irene. Thrilled to see them... a full house is a happy house!
I swam with my kids and I had a pool triathlon. Triathlon? You run across the shallow end of the pool until you can’t touch the bottom, then you swim across the deep end to the noodles waiting on the side of the pool. Lastly, you “bicycle” paddle on your noodles back to start. It was a riot! 
I went fishing again, and again, no success. I think the fish are just taunting me with their jumping out of the water.
I had dinner at a restaurant on the inlet that had laundry baskets as light fixtures.
I threw in some photography to round the evening out! 
Oh, and not only do I reunite lost children with their parents like I did on Saturday, but I also reunited my mother with her rogue flip flop that was pulled off her foot by a wave tonight, in the dark no less! 

It was a GOOD Monday! I wonder what June did on her vacations... En, who cares, I’ve got a hot tub waiting on me!

Day 66 Anniversary Travels Well

It is mine and my husband’s 11th wedding anniversary today! Coincidentally, we also spent 11 hours in our car, traveling  from New York to North Carolina today. Out of that 11 hours, I would say that between 9-10 of those hours were near perfect! Hey, they can’t all be perfect, at least not when a map is involved and a hurricane is dictating your unusual path. So we didn’t always see eye to eye on the route or where we would end up so that we would be out of Irene’s eye, but what matters is that we let it pass. We moved on and got over it. That’s what a 11 years of practice can bring you.

 George Washington Bridge

 Baltimore Harbor Tunnel--Bulb Exposure

Baltimore Harbor Tunnel--Bulb Exposure (again)

As far as our drive, we don’t usually spend our anniversary driving for hours on end. Clearly, mapping isn’t our niche and therefore, isn’t beneficial for our marriage. However, I still enjoyed my day. Smiles were had all day from being the shotgun sightseer to listening to the laughter of my mother playing with my daughter in the backseat... From enjoying my husband’s witty remarks beside me to driving to the beat of my own personal karaoke... From snickering at my son trapping a stink bug that stowed away in his sunroof to sipping on a cosmo after settling in at a hotel...  I loved my day! 

To celebrate my 11 years of wedded bliss, I’m sharing some of my favorite photos from our anniversaries past!

Top of the Rock-NYC (Completely blurry, but love it anyway)

The quiet shore that we walked along on our anniversary last year. Murrell's Inlet area.

A guest we found.

Smiles come easy on a day like this.