Boating & Dinner

On this years summer vacation we went to a local couples house (someone my father-in-law) knows. They invited us out to dinner one night. We left the kids at the house with nanny my in-laws brought to help with the kids.

The couple lived along one of the water canals that leads to the ocean and they have a boat. We all got into the boat and head up the channel and off to dinner. Talk about a fantastic way to go have dinner. I would have never in a million years dreamed I would be boating, docking and fine dinning all at once. This is something I think rich people do, not me.

My biggest regret, I forgot to take the camera. All through the channel we saw dolphin after dolphin. They would be right in front of the boat, right beside the boat, etc... I have never been this close to them before in their natural setting. I loved it!

We boated for about an hour and then docked at a docking area that had several restaurants. We ate dinner and then it was back into the boat. Now here is the part I didn't like... Off in the distance was a lovely thunderstorm. The sky was beautiful and all lit up with pretty colors and lighting everywhere. We drove really fast but we were also headed straight into the storm. I kept saying a prayer over and over again because it was a bit scary being on the water and surrounded by lighting. We docked just in time because as soon as we got into their house it started pouring down rain. It was an amazing light show with all the lightning, I was very glad we made it back before the rain hit.

Have you ever done something like this?

Drama-Mama

Let me introduce you to me niece Miss "C". I call her drama-mama. When this child does not get what she wants she throws the biggest fit I have ever seen. It goes on forever and she doesn't let it go!

See this black swim shirt she is wearing? Day one at the beach both girls got sun burnt. I always make my boys wear the UV swim shirts because the sun at the beach is so strong. Since they got sun burnt we went and bought the girls swim shirts. Drama-mama here did not want to wear this shirt. Two days in a row at the beach she screamed and cried and wanted this shirt off.

The problem was solved when we put the shirt under Nemo. She didn't tell us she wanted Nemo but once we did this the shirt was OK.

This was not the only time this child threw a royal fit about clothes.

Now for my Aloha Friday question:

My poor mother-in-law has no clue how to make clothing choices easier with drama-mama. Do any of you have advice on how to make picking out clothes with a very opinionated 2 year old easier? Do any of you have children like this?

Play along at An Island Life for Aloha Friday. If you’d like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave your link at An Island Life.

The Maker vrs. The Destroyer

Let me introduce you to my SAND CASTLE MAKER.

Luke would play on the beach all day building castles and he makes some pretty good ones for a 6 year old.

Now let me introduce you to the SAND CASTLE DESTROYER. The moment a bucket is tipped over and lifted he is their ready to crush it to the ground. Stomping and swing his arms until there is nothing left. You can see a little bit of the arm motion in this picture.

We had to do a lot of beach mediation as Luke would just scream the second he saw his brother coming towards his castles.

Go visit Angie at 7 Clown Circus for more great Wordful Wednesday post.

A FEW VACATION HIGHLIGHTS

This year’s vacation was a family vacation with my in-laws. my in-laws have custody of my sister-in-laws kids. They are doing the right thing by these kids even though it is very hard for them to be raising young kids while in their mid-50’s.

So on our trip we had my mother-in-law, father-in-law, Eric, myself and my in-laws also brought a lovely 22 year old gal “M” to help with the kids.

“A” who is my 4 year old niece.

“C” who is my two year old niece. I have a great story to share about the swim shirt she is wearing but I am going to make that a separate post. Let me just say she was our drama mama..

“L who is my 23 month old nephew. He is the one on the left. He is 6 months older than Thomas but so much smaller. Thomas is actually "C" size (she is little also).

And of course you have my two (Thomas 19 months old & Luke 6 years old).

If you can imagine the insanity of 5 kids.

We stayed in the beautiful 4 bedroom house that was two blocks from the ocean. I really think that house was happy to see us go because I would swear the kids had a pack that one of them must be screaming or crying at all times.

All of the houses were built up a story so this is different to us. I would also swear the placed swayed or moved. I noticed it a lot at night while sleeping.

While at the house one of our favorite things to do was to hang out on this huge porch. It had lots of rocking chairs and a hammock to just relax in.

The hammock was one of the kid’s favorite things to fight over. Everyone wanted a turn.

Isn't he adorable!

Now when we were not relaxing at the house we were at the beach. We love to go to the beach!

This was not the beach near where we stayed. This was Botany Bay and it is beautiful and full of thousands of sea shells.

Just like last year I have a picture of Thomas sleeping on the beach under an umbrella.

So cute but his chubby legs are not nearly as chubby as they were last year.

Thomas did not like the water the first day but on day two Luke had a boggy board and Thomas saw this and that was it, he wanted it and if it meant getting in the water to play on that thing, so be it. I would put it just at the edge of the water and he would sit on it and the waves would come in and push him up the sandy beach. He would laugh and it was a good old time.

Eric and his dad went fishing in the ocean and caught a shark. It was a little shark but they still caught a shark and the kids thought it was so cool and every one ate some but me. I hate sea food and I wasn’t about to eat that shark. (No one took a picture, what is wrong with us)

I could go on forever with so much more but this is getting long so I will take a break and share more another day.

Back to the real world

After 13 growling hours in the car yesterday we are finally home. It was supposed to be a drive we split between two days but my father-in-law decided he was driving all the way home so we did also.

So where did we go? We went to South Carolina's Edisto Island. If you have never been it is a very cool place. It is a small inter-coastal island. It one of hte last non-commercialized beach areas of South Carolina. Not a lot of stuff to do but hang out and go to the beach. That is how we like it. We could spend all our time at the beach.

Luke playing in the sand on the beach.

Thomas playing in the water at the beach.

We did break away from the beach on day and drove to Charlston. It was a little more than an hour away and we did spend a day in Charlston walking the streets of the city.

I have lots of pictures to share and many stories to tell. But right now I have had about 4 hours of sleep from the late arrival home last night and Thomas's early wake up call.

This is a picture of the look out from the house we stayed in.

We had several lap tops on vacation and even a wireless card but where we were at we could not pick up a signal for nothing. Even our cell phones did not work. So I have a lot of blogs to read and catch up on.