Vacation...

Finally I am taking a minute to post about vacation. My parents generously rented a gorgeous 5 bedroom house with a huge pool. We shared it with my parents, brother and his family, and my sister Julie. Unfortunately Brian, Dawn and Kristi couldn't join us. MJ got to see what it would be like to have a few brothers to horse around with and he thoroughly enjoyed it. Between Big Wheelin', playing Wii, swimming in the pool, going to the beach, climbing to the top of a lighthouse, petting an aligator, eating ice cream for breakfast, crabbing, hanging out with family playing games, and antagonizing his cousins, MJ had little time to miss home. And miss home he did not. Driving from Hilton Head and watching him struggle with his feelings of sadness and disappointment at vacation being over just brought me back to riding in the back of the giant Dodge van as a little girl, quietly crying listening to a Greg Russell tape. It is such an interesting experience taking your child to your childhood vacation spot. There's no denying the passing of time. But I can definitely see the world through his eyes if for just those few moments when I can recall being as young as he is.

I am going to just link to a quick slideshow I did with some of the pics. http://s177.photobucket.com/albums/w225/MJsMommy_2007/?action=view&current=a8d171e0.pbw I literally took over a thousand and cannot bare the time it would take to upload just my favorites as many of them fall in that category. As you will see our vacation had only one hiccup and it was during the drive home from VA to RI. We had some debris from I95 get kicked up into our windshield. It shattered and glass flew into my lap and face. Thankfully we had our angels on the road that day and we didn't crash and I didn't get cut. Mike got one small cut on his arm. Anyway we had to stay overnight in a hotel and wait for the windshield to be repaired in the morning. That would have been less of a problem had Annabelle not been sick. When we stopped to vacuum out the car we took her temperture which had reached a whopping 106. Mike took her to the ER while I took MJ to the hotel. Thankfully I can post that after 7 days of super high fevers she is back to normal now.

Speaking of back to normal, school resumes for Mike tomorrow. I can't believe we have spent our 54 days of summer leave already. We had so much fun and have so many memories from this summer it definitely wasn't wasted. Starting with a fishing trip to Cape Cod where we also whale watched, to Storyland in NH, Mike and MJ camping, and this vacation to Hilton Head, and having Mike home the entire time, this will be a summer we will not soon forget.