Barefoot in the Park

First thing in the morning on vacation, my parents took the kids to the park behind the house for some shenanigans and hollering and flower picking.

Every day Shae would come home with some pretty little weed to tuck behind her ear.

And evidently everything is more fun when you're barefoot and still in your pajamas.

Secretly, I'm kind of glad that Shae is still a little too small to go on the big swings, because this is something that they could do together.

And for much of the trip, they were pretty much always together -- inseparable, those two, like cheese and crackers, peanut butter and jelly, Sonny and Cher (with fewer Bob Mackie costumes).

Running Amok

My sister Jaime, her husband, and my delicious nephew arrived very early on Sunday -- the night before, Shae said she was "tired" early, and asked to go to bed, because we kept telling her that Joey would be there when she woke up in the morning. That was the only day of the entire trip where she was in bed at anywhere near her regularly-scheduled time. In the morning, after a brief fiasco involving a missing measuring cup and no vegetable oil and therefore no pancakes, we went to the beach.

(Gaaah ... I can't really recap this vacation like I normally do because basically just about everybody who would care about the recap was already there {hi, everybody!} so let me sum up: We had a hell of a lot of fun, the end. On to the pictures!)

(By the way, those are my dad's shoes in the background. I also have a pair in a smaller size. This is not just a useless piece of information - I believe there are pictures of my Phillies Crocs coming up in later pictures. Just a little FYI for you.)

We came home, stuffed ourselves full of hot dogs and peanut butter sandwiches (note: two separate foods, not hot-dog-and-peanut-butter sandwiches, which even Elvis would not eat), and took a nice long nap, after which we went to the park to run around, in an attempt to possibly get our children to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. No such luck.

I made exactly one attempt to get nice pictures with the pretty pre-sunset lighting, to no avail. Basically the most powerful force in the Universe, aside from the irresistible pull of perfectly cooked bacon, is the momentum of small children having the time of their lives.

I did get a nice new wallpaper for my computer monitor, though. So there's that.

And then the kids took a bath together, and Shae washed Joey's feet. I wish there was some special significance to that, but there isn't; it's just "ironical" because I am still scrubbing the dirt out of my own kid's toenails. That kid attracts dirt from other planets. Meanwhile, Joey has adorable little clean feet.

Getting Our Feet Wet

We really didn't waste any time jumping right into our vacation -- before everyone was even there, not much more than an hour after we picked up the keys, Shae was already splashing in the ocean.

Rescuing jellyfish.

Dragging Pop-pop into the waves.

And there was plenty more where that came from.

Never enough, of course, but plenty more.

Where Do I Begin?

I don't know which part of coming back to reality is going to be worst: Not waking up every morning just one block from the beach? Not seeing my family every waking minute? Trying to find all the stuff that is still packed up? Getting back on our normal schedule? Doing a metric ton of laundry? Sorting through literally thousands of pictures? I really don't know where to even start.

This much I can tell you -- going from this ...

... to my regularly-scheduled crapshack is going to be beyond difficult. I am trying to remember what the sign in the kitchen of the beach house said ...

... but it's going to be really hard to stop myself from complaining when I know how good we had it for a week. We had a playground right outside the back door and the beach right outside the front door.

And for the last week, our lives were pretty much perfect.

Why would I want to go back to the way things really are? At least we still have some rum and vodka left. I might need them to get through the next 30-some-odd hours until I have to go back to work.

The Weather Is Beautiful

Hi from vacation! We're having a great time, even though we can't figure out how to work the Internetwebs. I kind of don't care - it's been a long time since I voluntarily let my brain turn to pudding. I have FarmVille for the iPhone so I think we'll make it.

Maybe I'll come home, but there's a park right outside the back door and the beach is a block away and we still have plenty of vodka. Don't rush me, k?