How Early is Too Early to Plan??? - TR Link Added - 12/29

[PhoenixStrength]

I hope your DS is feeling better soon!!

It would be sweet to tale your MIL with you. And an added perk, if you and DW want to do something together you have a babysitter already.

 

[GoofyIsAsGoofyDoes]

Sorry to hear that the boy hasn’t been feeling well, but a returning apatite is a good sign.
May the recovery continue.


Now then…

Well, it is certainly hard to keep track of which bits of pop culture you're actually familiar with. You know, since you're a male and you didn't even know who/what Shakira was a few weeks ago.

There’s pop culture, and then there the truly vapid forms of “Entertainment Tonight”, “Inside Edition”, “National Enquirer” type of pop culture.

Y’all were discussing her as though she were a musician.
Were that true I’d have known her.
But now that you have clarified that basically she’s a poll dancer that appears in videos and happens to sing (and had you not been staring at the television and drooling over a video at the time you’d never have noticed the “song” either), I can see your attraction.

You watch… I listen…

 

[Leshaface]

Aw man, hope DS gets better soon. It's these times I don't look forward to as a parent...and the throwing up part Not sure if i'll be able to handle that.

As far as you MIL going, I'd look at it, as a good thing. My DH really enjoys when my mom comes along for trips (actually, he's the first one to ask if she's coming). It's also easier for us to get away together if me and him just want to do something and she loves hanging back in the room and watching DS for us, so it's a win-win. Then you and your DS could get on some big rides together since he'll be tall enough

 

[KatMark]

I hope your DS is feeling better by now (did you see that Barry and Bambi's little guy is in the hospital?).

Having the MIL could be a good thing as well when you and your wife want to do do rides that the kiddies don't and grandma can stay with them.

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Catching up...

We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express so we took full advantage of the breakfast offerings. They didn’t have a full tray of cinnamon rolls out, so I couldn’t sneak one out of there, but I certainly did eat more than one.

Half a tray is still quite the haul, you know.

In addition to that, they basically split even numbered sections on one side of the park and odd numbered sections on the other side.

That's weird. Figures the Braves would be involved.

The usher in our section never said anything to us, but after a while, security came over and told us she couldn’t walk up and down the steps. Um… well, ok, maybe it is fire marshal rules, so whatever.

Right, because they have to be able to evacuate the thousands of other fans in your section.

Same security guard came back. Told us he couldn’t sit like that. Now I’m ticked. I had a few words for him that time. But we sat like this the rest of the time.

Give a guy a uniform...

JJ Hoover was the man in the bullpen and the next inning he was called into the game. As he left, he tossed the ball in our direction. I started to stand up and catch it, but I noticed it was just a little bit to my left and there was a boy from the other family standing there right on line with it. I just sat down and let him catch it because I didn’t want to be “that guy” that makes the highlights on Sports Center or something.

And they would definitely have shown That Guy.

The kid immediately turned and handed the ball to DS.

Very cool! Even if he does have a box of them at home, that's a great thing to do.

Around the 8th inning, we got to see a Cincinnati fan favorite start getting loose.

The 100-mph fastball is still as compelling as ever.

The end result was an 8-4 win for the Reds and a split in the 4 game series. It was a great afternoon at the ballpark.

Anytime the Braves lose, it's a great afternoon at the ballpark!

 

[afwdwfan]

Thanks for the well wishes for DS. He still isn't feeling well and still has a fever. We got his swab results back and he has croup, although he hasn't coughed any and doesn't seem to have any trouble breathing. In addition to that fun, DD now has a fever, but hers appears to be one of her typical fevers she gets when she's teething, because she acts completely fine.

On top of all that, DW went to the Dr. yesterday with some abdominal pain. They did some blood work and a CT scan late yesterday evening and she had an appointment with the family Dr. again this morning. They've got about 3 or 4 different ideas, have ruled one possibility out, but still aren't exactly sure what it is since the tests still indicate a few different things could be the problem. So things are a little crazy around here right now.

I hope your DS is feeling better soon!!

It would be sweet to tale your MIL with you. And an added perk, if you and DW want to do something together you have a babysitter already.

Thanks, and that would be nice. I just feel like I'm the third wheel when I'm around DW and MiL.

Sorry to hear that the boy hasn’t been feeling well, but a returning apatite is a good sign.
May the recovery continue.

Slowly... very very slowly...

There’s pop culture, and then there the truly vapid forms of “Entertainment Tonight”, “Inside Edition”, “National Enquirer” type of pop culture.

Y’all were discussing her as though she were a musician.
Were that true I’d have known her.
But now that you have clarified that basically she’s a poll dancer that appears in videos and happens to sing (and had you not been staring at the television and drooling over a video at the time you’d never have noticed the “song” either), I can see your attraction.

You watch… I listen…

She is a musician. Who also has some incredible dancing skills. It's not like I drive around listening to her music, but you've got to admit, it's better than a lot of the crap they call music these days.

Aw man, hope DS gets better soon. It's these times I don't look forward to as a parent...and the throwing up part Not sure if i'll be able to handle that.

At least we haven't had to deal with any of that this time... yet anyway.

As far as you MIL going, I'd look at it, as a good thing. My DH really enjoys when my mom comes along for trips (actually, he's the first one to ask if she's coming). It's also easier for us to get away together if me and him just want to do something and she loves hanging back in the room and watching DS for us, so it's a win-win. Then you and your DS could get on some big rides together since he'll be tall enough

I'm sure it will be fine, either way. I like my MiL, it isn't that I don't want to be around her. I'd just rather we go with more of a group. DW and her mom are so close that it will really be like I'm the odd man out. But that works for me too as long as I can head off and do my own thing or take DS and go ride some rides while they're shopping or doing whatever they want to do.

I hope your DS is feeling better by now (did you see that Barry and Bambi's little guy is in the hospital?).

Yes I did... and of course, now he's out. Glad it wasn't more serious.

Having the MIL could be a good thing as well when you and your wife want to do do rides that the kiddies don't and grandma can stay with them.

I'm sure there will be good and bad. I'd be all for that, but we'll have to see.

Half a tray is still quite the haul, you know.

True. But a full tray with the lid on it is just easier to transport and more worth the effort.

That's weird. Figures the Braves would be involved.

I'd typically suspect the Cards or Cubs.

Right, because they have to be able to evacuate the thousands of other fans in your section.

Give a guy a uniform...

And an embroidered "badge"

And they would definitely have shown That Guy.

Very cool! Even if he does have a box of them at home, that's a great thing to do.

Absolutely. I'm sure I'd have wanted as many as I could get when I was his age.

Who am I kidding, I want a closet full of them now!

The 100-mph fastball is still as compelling as ever.

And he was consistently throwing around 102 - 104 during that series.

Anytime the Braves lose, it's a great afternoon at the ballpark!

 

[khertz]

That was SO sweet of that little boy to give the baseball to DS!

I still cannot get over how big DD is now. She is so squeezably cute!

 

[amandaw]

Sending prayers & pixie dust that everyone in your family is feeling better by now.

 

[afwdwfan]

That was SO sweet of that little boy to give the baseball to DS!

It really was. We have it sitting on a shelf at home.

I still cannot get over how big DD is now. She is so squeezably cute!

She is definitely getting big, and she's cute most of the time. You don't want to see her when she's sick though. She's like the Hulk or something.

Sending prayers & pixie dust that everyone in your family is feeling better by now.

Thanks. I think we're over it now. We stayed around home all weekend and everyone finally managed to stay fever free after about mid day Saturday. DS even finally got up and ran around and played yesterday so I think we're in the clear now.

 

[MEK]

Part of our plan for waiting until late 2014 would be so that DS is over 40" As of his appointment this morning, he was at 39 1/2. We'll easily be there by the time we're ready to go on our trip.

That's awesome! No worries about ride height then!

I've got to admit, I'm not crazy about the idea of taking this trip with just MiL, DW and the kids, but then again, I can also see how this might actually be a good thing for me. I can see them wanting to spend a lot of time in shops or at the resort. I could possibly get some solo park time or DS and I might be able to go do some things together. I know it sounds selfish, but hey, gotta find the bright spots.

That's definitely a bright spot. Selfish...mmmmmmm......not really. I'd be thinking the same thing.

 

[afwdwfan]

Yeah... I'm a little slow. What little Dis time I've had the past few weeks has been spent trying to keep up. I guess I've neglected this, but it is time to make up for that.

That's awesome! No worries about ride height then!

Shouldn't be any problems. I just hope he doesn't decide to chicken out on me.

That's definitely a bright spot. Selfish...mmmmmmm......not really. I'd be thinking the same thing.

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one.

 

[afwdwfan]

Beach Trip – Beach Part 1

We took our time getting up and getting some breakfast at the hotel on Monday morning. We only had a few hours driving to get to Panama City Beach.

We finally got ready and headed out. Our plan ahead of time, on paper anyway, was to go to Margaritaville to grab some lunch and then head to St. Andrew’s State Park for a few hours before checking in. I didn’t think it through that we were coming from a different direction than we had in the past and we were coming in on the opposite side of town from Margaritaville. Instead, we ended up just stopping at a Bob Evans to grab some lunch. We figured it would be a good place to stop since we could get stuff like green beans and mashed potatoes, which DD loves. We actually had a nice meal there and our server was awesome. She gave the kids some free cookies when we left. We got back in the car and decided to head towards the hotel instead of going to the state park.

There was a lot of traffic. I mean a lot. We were bumper to bumper all the way to the hotel on an early Monday afternoon. I pretty much decided at that point that we weren’t driving anywhere the rest of the week if we didn’t have to. We made it to the hotel and were able to check in a couple of hours early.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn resort, which used to be a Holiday Inn Sunspree. I spent the first 4 ½ years after I got out of school working for the USDA. I did a lot of traveling. Since I traveled so much I was enrolled in a lot of the different hotel points programs. In both 2006 and 2007, I got a Christmas card from Priorityclub, which is the Holiday Inn rewards program, thanking me for being in the top 1% of their customers for the year. Anyway, when we were married, we stayed at this Sunspree for our honeymoon on points and enjoyed it. The location was good, they had a great pool area and we thought it would be a nice place to take the kids so we decided to go back.

We parked out front and it was kind of a mad house getting in there. They had 4 lanes of cars with no real direction on where to park while you hauled stuff up. I actually sat with our car and waited until I could pull to the front of one of the lanes so that I could avoid being blocked in. I typically prefer to get my own luggage, but we had a lot of stuff. I was more than willing to tip someone to help us. Well, nobody ever came out, so I finally went and grabbed a luggage cart and took it to our car. I had it completely loaded and as I was putting the last bag on it, someone came over and asked if we’d like help with our luggage. I was a little bit hot and sweaty, and would have loved to have had some help putting things on the cart, so it might not have been the nicest tone of voice when I told him I think I’ve got it now. Honestly, I had done all the hard work. I wasn’t about to tip someone to roll the thing to the elevator and down a hallway after I’d already loaded it.
All the rooms here have a Gulf view and ours didn’t disappoint. You can see the pool area below and the splash pad to the left.

Parking at the hotel is across the street. They have a tunnel that runs under the road and they have golf carts running at all hours of the day to take you from the parking lot to the lobby, so I really liked that feature. I got the car parked after we took the luggage to our room and then we decided to head down to the beach for a little while. It was late afternoon, so we didn’t haul all of our beach gear down with us.

I don’t want to bore everyone more than necessary so I'm just going to basically summarize what we did during the week. We really didn’t do much other than relax and enjoy what the resort had to offer. As I mentioned they have a very nice pool area. They offered a “kids eat free” deal, so every evening, we just grabbed something to eat from the pool bar. We’d eat on the pool deck and then hop in the pool or enjoy the evening festivities. The food was just ok. Nothing great, but it was bar type food and we could eat there for about the same cost of buying meals for all four of us at a fast food place, so it was hard to beat it. The burgers were good, they had a great buffalo chicken wrap and the kids loved the free mac n cheese. And we didn’t have to drive anywhere, so it was a winner.

They also had a torch lighting ceremony every night at 7 pm, weather permitting. They’d light torches around the pool deck and then they had some hula dancers and a fire dancer come out and perform about a 30 minute show. It was always fun to watch it as we were eating or swimming. One night we even grabbed a lounge chair directly across the pool from them so we could just sit and watch the show. I did take some pictures that evening… but they are some of the pictures that didn’t survive the trip.

After the show ended, the hotel staff would quickly bring all the lounge chairs back out to the area of the pool deck where the dancing took place. Only instead of facing the pool, the chairs were lined up facing a large movie screen. They had “Dive in movies” every evening at 8. We didn’t stay to watch the movies every night, because DD typically goes to bed at around 8:30, but we did stay in the pool and watch Brave one night while we swam and we got lounge chairs to watch Peter Pan another night. These poolside activities in the evening were just great for us. We really didn’t feel the need to leave the resort at all for dinner or something to do in the evening.

We didn't typically have a camera around the pool in the evenings, but DW did get some sunset pictures one evening.

Ok, now that I’ve said that, I’ll go back to our first night. We had a full size refrigerator and needed some milk and other supplies. After we finished eating and got the kids ready for bed, I left to go to Wal Mart. Yeah, bad idea.

The parking lot was packed. I think I parked about 2 miles away from the store. I walked inside and grabbed a cart. I saw a lot of people in the main aisle along the food section right in front of me, but it took a little bit for it to register what was going on. These people were done shopping and in line to check out. All the checkout lanes were open. It was a complete mass of humanity from the checkout lanes halfway back the store. I had walked past a few carts that I noticed were full but seemed to be abandoned. Hmmm… makes sense now. I just abandoned my still empty cart and left.

I decided that I’d just get up at around 7 in the morning and head in to get supplies. As it turned out, that was a great idea. I walked in and the place was a ghost town. I did notice that there were a lot of empty shelves and they had employees out everywhere restocking things. I kind of wondered if that was an every night occurrence for that store, or if it was a Monday night thing. Either way, I had no intention of coming back to find out.

Continued in the next post

 

[afwdwfan]

Beach Trip – Beach Part 2

Since we really did a lot of the same things over and over most days, I’ll just kind of summarize what we did at the resort.

We really thought the splash pad would be a huge hit with our kids. We thought wrong. DD absolutely hated it. She wanted nothing to do with water shooting from anything or splashing on her. DS liked it just fine until he climbed up on the slide in the middle of it and a big bucket of water dumped over his head. That was the end of that. So while we thought we’d spend a lot of time here, I think we might have totaled about 45 minutes for the whole week. DS would ask to go back over there about every day, and we did so. But again, once he got splashed, he was done with it. He’d tell me that he didn’t want to get his hair wet, and of course, this is after he had just been jumping into the pool and already as wet as he could be.

We spent every day doing a combination of playing in the pool and hanging out on the beach. One day we drove to Pier Park and ate lunch at Margaritaville. Another day, we walked down the beach to eat lunch at Pineapple Willy’s (about a 1 mile walk each way). The other 2 days, we grabbed a pizza from the counter at the hotel and just ate it while we were sitting at the beach. We could get a large pizza for $8 and it was plenty for us to all share. It wasn’t great pizza, but wasn’t bad either. For the price, it was hard to beat.

DD was definitely in a mood where she had to nap every day. It worked fine on the Margaritaville day because we had to go back to the room to change anyway, so she fell asleep before we headed back down to the pool. She fell asleep on our walk to Pineapple Willy’s and actually slept in my lap while I ate. On the days that we ate pizza, I took her back to the room after lunch to sleep. On Wednesday, I ended up taking both DS and DD back to the room because he was getting a little grumpy too. We were up there for about an hour before I could finally get them to sleep. I was bored and spent some time catching up on the Disboards on my phone. I had a few pictures that I uploaded to Flickr and posted to the Disdads thread to taunt the guys stuck at work.

The middle umbrella with the blue and white sections is where we were camped out for the day.

My drink of choice for the week.

Please excuse the fact that the room is completely trashed, but these are the best room pictures I was able to get while the kids napped.

One of the walls in the room was a big mirror. DD absolutely loved it. She laughed at herself, punched herself and just had a good ole time with that thing.

After a couple of hours the kids were awake and we headed back down to find DW. We got back to our spot on the beach and I saw DW out in the water floating on an innertube that I had picked up for DS at Wal Mart. DS started to flip out because she was out in the water with his toy and he took off running towards her. She was out in water just a little bit deeper than he was tall, so I took off after him while still hanging on to DD. I caught him and took him out to DW and all was well. Until I had that “oh $#!t” moment when I realized I was in chest deep water and my phone was still in my pocket.

So now you know why I lost most of my pictures. My phone was completely fried, and it even ruined my SD card, so I had nothing.

Over the course of our time on the beach, we found out that DD wasn’t a fan. She hated the sand. She hated the waves. When I went to Wal Mart, I bought a cheap bed sheet to put on the ground just so she would actually have room to move around without having to step in sand and freak out. She spent a lot of time just sitting in the shade eating her puffs. She did eventually tolerate being put down on the sand by the time we left, but she refused to walk in the stuff. She did love being in the pool though. They had a ledge around the edge of it that you can sit on. It was the perfect height for her to walk around in waist deep water and she had a blast there. The kids had actually just started swim lessons the week before and she would drop down in the water to blow bubbles and she thought it was hilarious.

And yes, this girl loves to eat. She had either puffs or Cheerios in her hand at almost all times. But it kept her happy.

DS loved playing in the sand. He wasn’t too crazy about being in the Gulf water for the first few days. He’d go out with me as long as I was carrying him, but he didn’t want to float on his innertube or walk into the edge of the waves on his own until we’d been there a few days. He did eventually warm up to it and seemed to really enjoy everything about the beach and the resort with the exception of the splash pad.

One of his favorite things to do was build sand castles and then destroy them. He liked the destruction part the most, I think. He asked to build a tractor so we helped him with that. I think it survived about 5 minutes before he attacked it.

We had a great week at the beach, and it was a lot of fun. I’ll be honest, by Friday, I was ready to get the heck out of there. I had a good time, but DW just really enjoys sitting around at the beach or the pool and I was getting kind of stir crazy. The kids were too, because by the last couple of days DS was asking if we could go home. I did have a proud father moment one evening. We asked DS if he wanted to go to the pool or to the beach the next morning and he said “I want to go to Disney World tomorrow.”
Good kid.

We checked out early Saturday morning and had a nice drive home. We hit a few rain showers along the way, but really not too bad. There was a heat wave moving through the Midwest the week we were gone and it felt kind of odd leaving weather in Florida that was topping out in the mid-80’s every day and returning home to temperatures in the mid-90’s. Our house was so hot when we got home that I thought the AC wasn’t working. As it turned out, we have a programmable thermostat and I had programmed it to warm up while we were gone and I had it set to cool back down on Saturday before we got home. It just never was able to catch up as hot as the temperatures were outside that day.



I apologize for taking so long to get our beach trip summary finished. We’ve had a lot of things going on around home lately and everything has been hectic. I haven’t done much planning as of late for our Disney World trip, but last week one of the details fell into place for me to be able to announce that there is probably a 75% chance that we’ll be following our late fall Disney World trip with an early 2015 visit to Disneyland. I’m really excited for that one and I can’t wait to start planning for my first ever visit to Walt’s original park!

 

[PhoenixStrength]

You had a great view of the Gulf from your room!

It sounds like all in all you had a good trip. I'm with you in that after a few days I would be stir crazy just sitting on the beach. And your DS is very smart to prefer WDW!

I keep starting to plan a trip to DL, but it always changes to WDW. Can't wait to hear about your possible trip there.

 

[eandesmom]

what a great view! The parking lot and Walmart sounds just horrible. I love the beach and the pool but after so many days I do need to move. At least for half a day...then I can go back to the beach or the pool.

Adorable pictures. Sand is tough with little ones, pretty common issue but glad to hear she made a little progress. Big bummer about the splash pad though. It looks like a lovely and relaxing trip with lots of sun, surf and pool. Can't go wrong with that!

 

[shan23877]

Sounds like a fun trip! My DH is a lot like you, he can't just sit by the pool or on the beach. I used to be able to, but I'm the commando one at WDW so I might go a little crazy now too!

Great picture of the 2 kids on the sand-that's a Christmas card photo!

I have pretty much avoided Walmart for almost 10 years. Your story had been my experience every single time (though never with all lanes open). Can't do it.

I'm so sorry about you phone! That stinks!

Ohhh DLR? Can't wait to hear these plans!

 

[afwdwfan]

You had a great view of the Gulf from your room!

It was really nice. I actually liked sitting on the balcony about as well as I liked sitting on the sand.

It sounds like all in all you had a good trip. I'm with you in that after a few days I would be stir crazy just sitting on the beach. And your DS is very smart to prefer WDW!

I know. When he said that I would have been tempted to run with it and tell DW to pack up and we'll go if it had been earlier in the week.

I keep starting to plan a trip to DL, but it always changes to WDW. Can't wait to hear about your possible trip there.

It has always just been so cost prohibitive to us to want to do it when we can easily go to WDW. In this scenario, our flight will be covered for a conference I'll have to attend. We'll just have to get a rental car and pay for the hotel nights at DL...

what a great view! The parking lot and Walmart sounds just horrible. I love the beach and the pool but after so many days I do need to move. At least for half a day...then I can go back to the beach or the pool.

I would have probably been fine with the idea of doing something else for a day or so, but it just doesn't seem like there's much around PCB that isn't "beach" or "tourist trap." Between that and the fact that traffic was a pain, I just didn't really care to do much exploration this time. The beach is fun, but in moderation.

Adorable pictures. Sand is tough with little ones, pretty common issue but glad to hear she made a little progress. Big bummer about the splash pad though. It looks like a lovely and relaxing trip with lots of sun, surf and pool. Can't go wrong with that!

It was definitely a good time! I really wish they had gotten over the fear of the splash pad. It really was a very nice play area and I'm sure they would have had fun if they could get over their fear of being splashed.

Sounds like a fun trip! My DH is a lot like you, he can't just sit by the pool or on the beach. I used to be able to, but I'm the commando one at WDW so I might go a little crazy now too!

I handle it a lot better when it is something like 2 beach days and then Disney World.

Great picture of the 2 kids on the sand-that's a Christmas card photo!

Thanks!

I have pretty much avoided Walmart for almost 10 years. Your story had been my experience every single time (though never with all lanes open). Can't do it.

Well, where we live our options are somewhat limited. I'm not a big Wal Mart fan, but this was certainly the most crowded store I've ever stepped foot in by a long way. It was just ridiculous!

I'm so sorry about you phone! That stinks!

Well, I have to admit, I hated that phone. I had been wanting to get an S4 and was eligible for an upgrade, but I hadn't had that phone for a year yet and I didn't want to spend the money to upgrade. So after I got over being mad at my own stupidity, I was pretty happy about finally getting rid of the piece of crap for a new phone.

Ohhh DLR? Can't wait to hear these plans!

I just hope it all works out. I think it will, and I'm really excited about it!

 

[Leshaface]

I absolutely love the view from your room. So pretty!

Wonder what was going on that night at Walmart that it was so busy. Would have made me even more upset, knowing i'm walking out with nothing, and still have to walk 2 miles back to my car!

Glad you guys had a great family trip and am happy that your DS mentioned going to WDW. Like father, like son

I'm so happy that you guys will be coming out to DLR in 2015! You said early 2015, are you looking in January-February?

 

[MEK]

My favorite part of your beach vacation - the summer shandy. Just kidding!

Love the view. Very nice.

Love the beach. Very pretty.

Love all the pictures of the kids. Very adorable!

Love the sunset picture. Very beautiful.

So funny that DD doesn't enjoy sand between her toes. I can so relate to that.
And you gotta love a little boy who asks to go to Disney world.

The Walmart I have seen my local walmart like that once. It was right before a hurricane. OMG. Smart move coming back the next morning.

Total bummer about your phone.

 

[afwdwfan]

I absolutely love the view from your room. So pretty!

It certainly was!

Wonder what was going on that night at Walmart that it was so busy. Would have made me even more upset, knowing i'm walking out with nothing, and still have to walk 2 miles back to my car!

Well, based on my quick observations, I'd say it was a bunch of tourists, who had spent all day on the beach stocking up on food and alcohol. But mostly alcohol.

Glad you guys had a great family trip and am happy that your DS mentioned going to WDW. Like father, like son

It was one of those proud parent moments, for sure.

I'm so happy that you guys will be coming out to DLR in 2015! You said early 2015, are you looking in January-February?

Well... specifically, it would be either before or after a conference that will take place Jan 11 - 14 in San Diego. I can't pass on an opportunity to go to Disneyland when I should have an opportunity to at least be that close without having to pay for a plane ticket.

My favorite part of your beach vacation - the summer shandy. Just kidding!

You know, there might be some truth to that statement. That is some good stuff.

Love the view. Very nice.

Love the beach. Very pretty.

Love all the pictures of the kids. Very adorable!

Love the sunset picture. Very beautiful.

Definitely feeling the love right now. Thanks!

So funny that DD doesn't enjoy sand between her toes. I can so relate to that.
And you gotta love a little boy who asks to go to Disney world.

Absolutely! Him saying that was the highlight of the trip for me.

The Walmart I have seen my local walmart like that once. It was right before a hurricane. OMG. Smart move coming back the next morning.

Hmmm... I bet our local store is like that when they start using words like "ice storm" and "blizzard" on TV. I just make sure I don't go anywhere near the place when that stuff is going on. I've never seen anything like this mess I ran into at PCB. It was insane.

Total bummer about your phone.

The worst part was just being without it for almost a week. You don't realize how much you miss it until you don't have it. I've got to say I love my new phone though, so it was a positive in the end.