Good Morning, My Lovlies! No real weekend goals post for this weekend since the little dude and I will be taking off to go see my Mommy in DC this weekend. Momsters is in DC for a conference for work and that's only two hours North of me so there was no way I wasn't going to invade our Nations capital for a little Momma time.
Hope you all have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday with some new stuff for ya. I just don't know what new stuff it will be yet. I'll work on that this weekend. Peace out, homeys!
Showing posts with label vacations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vacations. Show all posts
Friday, December 9, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Once the Weekend Actually Got Started. . . .
Once we got past all of the bumps in the road (yeah, I see the irony) in the very beginning of our trip, we actually got to enjoy some really great weather and experiences. Rather than narrate every little thing that we did, I'll let the pictures do the talking with minimal explanation from me.
This was all I needed to get my morning started off right!
So, we packed up a picnic and headed out for an adventure!
The views were absolutely amazing! We drove out to Fort Fisher and literally stopped by the road to find a spot for our picnic. Beautiful weather, beautiful views, and a great packed lunch!
The weather was great! Not too hot, not too cold. Just perfect!
A picture of the little ham and myself.
This next series of photos is actually funny! I had told Ty that he needed to really watch his food because a Seagull might come down and grab it from him if he's not careful. Thankfully, I had my camera handy to capture this:
He's nervous about a seagull taking his food. . . .
So, he makes faces at the seagulls to persuade them to stay away. . .
He yells at them to stay away. . . .
And lastly, gives them the "Don't Mess With ME!" glare!
This picture also made me giggle! Tyler's Dad was messing around with him and I got the picture at the exact right time. No, neither one of us hits our kid!
We decided to hop on the ferry to go over to Southport, NC. We didn't know anything about the place but saw a little flier about it that someone had left behind in the beach house. Plus, the ferry was only $5. We figured that was a small price to pay for the fact that Ty would think it was super cool to drive our car onto a boat and ride around.
Ty loved the ferry! He loved looking at all of the birds and sights surrounding us.
I have to admit, it was a gorgeous view!
The visitor's center in Southport. This place is seriously the small little beach towns that you read about in Nicholas Sparks' novels. Or maybe I just read too much. Sappy love stories.
Seriously. . such a cute small little town! There were shops everywhere.
Like this one. A Christmas Tree shop. Awesome!
A Candy Shop and Toy Shop in one = Child's Dream!
A big fish fountain
I got lots of these that day!
OMG. . I saw these in the Candy Shop and didn't think they could possibly be real. I was wrong. I don't even think Katie Bower's crazy love for bacon would have tempted her enough to eat these. Or maybe I'm wrong?
Bacon's not your thing? No worries, they come in other flavors too. Eww. . .gross!
Seriously. . .this place was just too cute!
I saw these two sitting in the swing and I just couldn't help myself. And no, they don't know that there was a crazy stalker-azzi taking their picture from behind.
Bright idea kid--put your head inside of a croc's mouth. . .
then wrestle the croc!
What mother doesn't love an ice cream covered smiley face?
Monday, November 21, 2011
You Cannot Seriously Be Serious! Part Two
Yes, there's a part two. Because only having a Part one wouldn't be sufficient enough. My motto is "Go Big or Go Home". And that's just what I was about to do when we got to the beach house. Turn around and go home.
By time we made it to the beach house after the unexpected side of the road detour that we made, it was almost 1:00 a.m. Since there are only visitors to the house every other month or so, we have the water and heat/AC turned off when we're not there. So standard ritual when we first get there involves turning the water on and getting everything flowing. Yeah. . .I should have known that I was in for an unpleasant surprise. As soon as I turned on the water, I heard BD shouting frantically "Turn it off, Turn it off, TURN IT OFF!".
Apparently, when the water first turned on, he heard a spitting sound coming from behind the washing machine. He went over to the water valve behind the washer and attempted to turn the water off at the problem. It didn't turn out so well. The valve was so corroded that it literally broke off in his hand.
Oh the four letter words that were running through my head. I was SO tired and dealing with a plumbing problem was the abolute.last.thing. I wanted to deal with. Instead of breaking down in tears (which is what I wanted to do), I just turned off the water to the entire house and went to bed. I was defeated and figured we'd just deal with it in the morning. Afterall, how hard of a fix could it possibly be? I would live to regret that thought.
The next morning, we got up, ate breakfast and BD ran out to Lowes to get the parts that he thought he needed to fix the problem. I didn't care what he did, I just wanted it fixed so I could take a shower. And flush the toilet. Again, I was seriously thankful that BD was at the house with me so that I at least had some help to deal with this problem. Plumbing isn't necessarily his thing but he'll work on any problem until he can get it figured out so I knew he would be able to get it fixed.
Once he came back with the parts he was going to need to fix the problem, BD got to work. He had been working for about an hour when he came and told me that I needed to call my mom. He said he was going to need to cut into the wall to get to the pipes that he thought were the problem (he was convinced that the pipes were leaking down into the interior of the wall--bad news) and he didn't want to do that without at least talking to her about it first.
Of course, my Mom told us to do whatever we needed to do in order to get it fixed. She just didn't want us in a house for three days with no running water. And she certainly didn't want a leak to continue that was leaking down the inside of the walls! So, with that, BD started cutting a hole into the wall.
By time we made it to the beach house after the unexpected side of the road detour that we made, it was almost 1:00 a.m. Since there are only visitors to the house every other month or so, we have the water and heat/AC turned off when we're not there. So standard ritual when we first get there involves turning the water on and getting everything flowing. Yeah. . .I should have known that I was in for an unpleasant surprise. As soon as I turned on the water, I heard BD shouting frantically "Turn it off, Turn it off, TURN IT OFF!".
Apparently, when the water first turned on, he heard a spitting sound coming from behind the washing machine. He went over to the water valve behind the washer and attempted to turn the water off at the problem. It didn't turn out so well. The valve was so corroded that it literally broke off in his hand.
Oh the four letter words that were running through my head. I was SO tired and dealing with a plumbing problem was the abolute.last.thing. I wanted to deal with. Instead of breaking down in tears (which is what I wanted to do), I just turned off the water to the entire house and went to bed. I was defeated and figured we'd just deal with it in the morning. Afterall, how hard of a fix could it possibly be? I would live to regret that thought.
The next morning, we got up, ate breakfast and BD ran out to Lowes to get the parts that he thought he needed to fix the problem. I didn't care what he did, I just wanted it fixed so I could take a shower. And flush the toilet. Again, I was seriously thankful that BD was at the house with me so that I at least had some help to deal with this problem. Plumbing isn't necessarily his thing but he'll work on any problem until he can get it figured out so I knew he would be able to get it fixed.
Once he came back with the parts he was going to need to fix the problem, BD got to work. He had been working for about an hour when he came and told me that I needed to call my mom. He said he was going to need to cut into the wall to get to the pipes that he thought were the problem (he was convinced that the pipes were leaking down into the interior of the wall--bad news) and he didn't want to do that without at least talking to her about it first.
Of course, my Mom told us to do whatever we needed to do in order to get it fixed. She just didn't want us in a house for three days with no running water. And she certainly didn't want a leak to continue that was leaking down the inside of the walls! So, with that, BD started cutting a hole into the wall.
Once he got a hole cut into the wall, he explained to me that what he saw wasn't what he was expecting. At that point, I wasn't sure if that was good news or bad news.
Of course, I could see the water damage that the leaking pipe had done to the interior of the wall but aside from that, I wasn't sure what exactly it was that he was expecting to see. He explained to me that the way that the pipe was connected to the valve wasn't something that could be undone and fixed. What did that mean? It meant that he was going to have to cut the pipe off of the valve and replace the entire pipe. And he didn't have the parts necessary for that job. So, back to Lowes he went. About two hours later, he was back with more parts. Back to work he went.
So, he worked for a couple more hours and seemed like he was making progress. In fact, he had new valves installed and had reconnected the plumbing. At about 6:30 p.m., he asked me to go turn on the water again. B-A-D NEWS! As soon as I turned on the water, he started screaming for me to turn it back off. When I walked back into the kitchen, I saw that he was soaked, the floor was soaked, the washing machine was soaked, and the wall (including the cut out part) was completely soggy. Yeah, the water had been on for about 3 seconds total. Clearly, we still had a huge problem. So after throwing around almost every four letter word that the two of us knew, we got back to work trying to figure out what the problem was. BD indicated that he thought he was going to have to cut deeper into the wall. And that's just what he did. Cut a bigger hole.
Once a bigger hole was cut, he realized that this problem was much bigger than he had initially thought. It was going to require a complete replacement of the pipe. That meant more tools and materials that we didn't have. For the third time in one day, BD was making a trip to Lowes. But this time, Ty and I went with him. Off to Lowes we went. Again. The greatest (read the sarcasm. It's dripping right here.) part is that Lowes didn't have all of the materials that we needed. Great, it's almost 8:00 at night and I'm being told that after working on this problem all.day.long that I may need to pack up the car and head the five hours back to Richmond (at this point, we still can't shower, make coffee, or flush a toilet) all because Lowes doesn't have all of the materials? Fabulous. The guy at Lowes was trying to be helpful and called over to Home Depot to see if they had the items that we needed. They did, but they were also across town which meant that we were going to end up about 30 minutes away from the beach house. What choice did we have? This woman needed a shower! So, off to Home Depot we went to get the rest of the materials that we were going to need in order to fix the problem.
By time we got back to the beach house, it was almost 9:30, and we still hadn't eaten dinner. We had picked up a pizza on the way back and Tyler quickly ate before heading off to bed. Thankfully, he didn't need a bath before bed! Once Ty was in bed, BD and I got busy. Not like that! Busy working on getting this darn plumbing issue fixed.
It took a couple more hours but we finally. . .FINALLY. . .got the darn thing fixed. It was nearly the stroke of 2 a.m. when BD told me to turn on the water to the house and, thankfully, didn't scream (or stomp--we had to adapt our communication method after Ty went to sleep) for me to turn it back off. I nearly passed out from exhaustion and exhilaration that we were done. Or maybe I almost passed out from smelling my own stink all day? Who knows. Either way, the water was fixed. FIXED!
And I think Mom will be happy when she sees that the washer totally disguised the hole that BD had to cut in order to fix the problem.
After that was done, all I wanted (aside from a shower) was to sleep and enjoy my trip to the beach. Luckily, I got to do just that the next day.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
You Cannot Seriously Be Serious!
As you know, we were taking off and heading to the beach last weekend. There is a whole list of things that I'm grateful for and one of them is my mom's beach house. In my eyes, this is the best purchase that my mother has ever made. Especially since I get to enjoy it pretty much any.time.I.want! So, I try to get down there as often as possible. It has come to represent an oasis for me. A place to get away and de-stress. To pretend that "normal" life like jobs, bills, school, and responsibility don't exist. A breath of fresh air.
Well, that breath of fresh air came to a startling halt on Thursday night while I was on my way down. As I was driving along the highway in North Carolina, I heard a strange sound. It sounded like I had run over something in the road. Only there was no thump to indicate that I had actually run over something. At first, I ignored it thinking that I was hearing things. Or, that maybe Ty had made a noise from the backseat. Then, I heard it again. My son's father (who was also on the trip with us--long story--I might tell you later) heard it too. I looked at him. He looked at me. I said "What the. . . .?" He was silent. Instead, he thought for a moment (literally, just a second) and then nearly jumped into my lap in order to peer down at the instrument panel on the dashboard. Half a second later he screams "PULL OVER RIGHT NOW!" and then quietly adds "safely". Uh. . .yeah, sure. I'll get right on that.
I swiftly pulled across three lanes of the interstate and immediately came to a stop. I had no idea what was going on but when I got out of my car, this is what I found:
In case you're wondering, that's a flat tire. A VEERRRRY flat tire. Oh freaks. It's 10:30 at night, I'm literally halfway between Virginia and North Carolina and the freakin tire is gushing air like a lovesick middle schooler gushes about her first kiss. This was the first time (oh yes, there were more) that I literally looked heavenward and thanked God that my son's father was with us on this trip. At the very least, he knows how to change a tire. And that's just what he got to doing.
While he changed the tire, I jumped around trying to stay warm (it is November, afterall!), trying to calm down (the adrenaline rush was quite the problem), and trying to keep a man company who would have rather just been left alone to finish changing a tire that he never wanted to change in the first place.
This is what a six year old looks like when he wakes up from a traveling nap and the car is on the side of the road and nobody else but you and the dogs are in it. Needless to say, we weren't aware he was awake until we heard his disoriented cries for us. Poor little guy! Once I explained to him what was going on, he was fine. Actually, he just wanted to listen to music on my phone.
Well, that breath of fresh air came to a startling halt on Thursday night while I was on my way down. As I was driving along the highway in North Carolina, I heard a strange sound. It sounded like I had run over something in the road. Only there was no thump to indicate that I had actually run over something. At first, I ignored it thinking that I was hearing things. Or, that maybe Ty had made a noise from the backseat. Then, I heard it again. My son's father (who was also on the trip with us--long story--I might tell you later) heard it too. I looked at him. He looked at me. I said "What the. . . .?" He was silent. Instead, he thought for a moment (literally, just a second) and then nearly jumped into my lap in order to peer down at the instrument panel on the dashboard. Half a second later he screams "PULL OVER RIGHT NOW!" and then quietly adds "safely". Uh. . .yeah, sure. I'll get right on that.
I swiftly pulled across three lanes of the interstate and immediately came to a stop. I had no idea what was going on but when I got out of my car, this is what I found:
In case you're wondering, that's a flat tire. A VEERRRRY flat tire. Oh freaks. It's 10:30 at night, I'm literally halfway between Virginia and North Carolina and the freakin tire is gushing air like a lovesick middle schooler gushes about her first kiss. This was the first time (oh yes, there were more) that I literally looked heavenward and thanked God that my son's father was with us on this trip. At the very least, he knows how to change a tire. And that's just what he got to doing.
While he changed the tire, I jumped around trying to stay warm (it is November, afterall!), trying to calm down (the adrenaline rush was quite the problem), and trying to keep a man company who would have rather just been left alone to finish changing a tire that he never wanted to change in the first place.
This is what a six year old looks like when he wakes up from a traveling nap and the car is on the side of the road and nobody else but you and the dogs are in it. Needless to say, we weren't aware he was awake until we heard his disoriented cries for us. Poor little guy! Once I explained to him what was going on, he was fine. Actually, he just wanted to listen to music on my phone.
And this is what a naughty pit bull looks like when he jumps over two rows of seats to get a better view from the passengers seat. Naughty Pete!
Once we got the tire changed and the spare put on, I learned a valuable lesson: It is very important to make sure that you have a spare tire which is properly inflated at all times. My spare was seriously low on air so once we got it on the car, we ended up having to drive about 15 miles before we could find a gas station that was open AND had air that we could put in the tire. Apparently, people in rural North Carolina don't need air that often. It was tough to find! We got back on the road (with BD situated at the wheel--I refused to drive after that experience) and eventually made it to the beach house a couple of hours later than we had intended. I only wish that's where the problems ended. Oh no. . .we got a surprise when we got to the beach house, but that's for a later post.
The next day, we had to take the car to a tire place so that we could get the original tire fixed and get the spare put back in it's spare-y place. Of course, we couldn't find a place that was in a decent location and we didn't anticipate the fix taking so long. It was over lunch time, so we had to find somewhere to eat that was within walking distance of the tire place. Ha! That was an entirely laughable event. The only establishments within walking distance were a laundromat, a children's consignment store and a gas station. Guess where we ended up eating?
Ty didn't seem to mind. I think he was just happy that we agreed to feed him.
I will say, despite the fact that it was a gas station, they had the best North Carolina BBQ sandwiches I've ever tasted! Tyler seemed to agree!
Be sure to check back tomorrow for another post outlining the other "incident" that we had while on our beach vacation!
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