Thursday, July 12, 2012

A little time away

Sometimes it is a good thing to take breaks. I find it refreshing to return to the routine after a good, long break. This is one reason I love vacation and travel.

Lucky for me, we got to go to Florida this summer for a week. Steve, the boys, Kathy Barrett, and I flew to Fort Walton Beach, which is right next to Destin. And then we planted ourselves on the beach and pretty much didn't move until we had to leave. It was wonderful!

We were very lucky weather-wise. As we boarded our plane to Pensacola that Monday, we weren't sure if we would arrive in the middle of Tropical Storm Debby or sweet Florida sunshine. We found the sunshine, and in fact, the weather was nicer in Florida that week than it was here at home in Chicagoland!

There are lots of fun stories from vacation, but I have so much to write about and so many pictures to include tonight, that I will summarize with our favorites.

Jack's favorite - the hot tub. Luckily, he abided by the the five-minute limit we gave him! He would have stayed there all day if we had let him, but I did not want a Jack-boil!

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Steve's favorite - the waves of the Gulf/the beach. My joke with Kathy was that every day when it was time to clean up and head back to the room, Steve would disappear to the water for one last swim. He just didn't want to leave.

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Reid's favorite - the pool. This kid loves to sit and splash. We probably didn't spend as much time as he would have liked at the pool, but he loved every second we were there.

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Karen's favorite - sitting on the beach under the umbrella watching the boys play and holding Reid while he fell asleep. Just watching the waves crash on the shore was mesmerizing and relaxing. There is also something to be said for just sitting.

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I also had a close second favorite - getting to see my dear friend Amy. In an amazing coincidence, Amy was on a girls' trip staying at a resort just 30 minutes away. She was so sweet to drive over to spend an afternoon with us, and I loved every second of getting to chat with her in person.

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And now for a barrage of vacation photos. Enjoy!

Sand creations
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Family photos
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We returned from our beach vacation just in time for a heat wave and July 4th. We had some family over to our house for a low-key barbeque to celebrate our Independence. Due to the weather, we went outside only long enough to splash around in the baby pool. We had a lovely picnic indoors in the air conditioning.

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Love Grandma's face in this one!
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Yep, he's jumping off of the playset into the pool
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Notice how they both have the Unger tongue hanging out? They were concentrating on hitting Uncle Awesome
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Uncle Awesome's reaction
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Boat races
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At the end of the night, Jack felt very strongly that we put out the rest of the American flags. He had "planted" one earlier in the day, but he wanted to make sure that they all got out there. Jack loves the American Flag, so of course, I indulged him. We'll talk more about flag code and the dark when he gets older.

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So now we our getting back into a regular routine. I'm trying to take advantage of the opportunity to establish new routines. We will see how that goes. I've got some research to do on kids activities, but stay tuned here for more about our new "pizza garden" and some science experiments we are trying out!

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