I’ve been so slammed since vacation, I’ve been terrible about blogging or even pulling the pictures from the Outer Banks off my camera.  I did it tonight, at the expense of my real work - but hey, I needed a break. 

We journeyed to Kitty Hawk because Theresa (from Allergy Apparel fame) and Gina (famous in her own right for being the hottest pregnant woman on the planet) let me and the girls tag along.  Their husbands put up with us nicely as well, especially when the Great Spider Scare of 2010 forced Lily and Arden (okay, and me) upstairs.  The bottom “section” of the beach house was, um, well.  It was . . .damp.  Theresa and Todd and the burly boys ended up stay down there - in twin bunk beds - while I got to stay upstairs in a slightly warmer but much drier bed while the girls snoozed with Landis.  I can’t thank them enough, even though I kept trying to force them back upstairs.  I think Theresa secretly enjoyed sleeping in a twin bed with her hubby.  Then again, maybe not. 

I loved vacationing with Theresa and Gina’s families because they actually know how to relax.  We sat on the beach.  We packed lunches.  We cooked most nights.  When we weren’t cooking, we were eating pizza.  We flew kites.  We took turns watching the kids so that long bike rides could be completed (I think Mark easily surpassed 100 miles on his bike during the week there), runs could be done (Theresa “ran” with me one night - which meant I was able to keep her ass in sight for all of about 3 minutes).  We took naps.  Todd played surrogate father and uber cool uncle to my girls, playing with them in the waves, dragging them around on their boogie boards, and bandaging random wounds.  He also broke up a lot of fights.  Arden and Blue Sky are quite headstrong.  The two of them together negates any country needing a nuclear weapon - their mixture is potent and all-powerful. 

It was weird.  Since I hadn’t really relaxed, the Homestead prior got me in this sort of sloth-like trance that was hard to shake.  Even watching Theresa frantically work did little to motivate me, and usually one needs a crowbar and threats of death to separate me from my shitty old Dell notebook. 

What was weird, too, was being on my first “single mom” vacation.  Being on duty 24/7 was interesting, to say the least, but having the other families around and all the kids helped dull the major absence of male companionship/help.  There were actually a couple of victorious moments where I said, “YEAH MAN, I can TOTALLY DO THIS!!!”  in sort of a Matthew McConaughey/Jack Johnson surfer voice. 

I’m really glad I went.  Leaving during nap mat season was difficult, but WiFi in the beach house made it do-able, and by Friday of this week I might be sort of caught up.  If not, there’s always next week. 

I love when I can use pictures instead of words to talk about what I’ve been up to.

First:  Theresa’s son turned three. 

Then Easter:

And then a visit with Anja, Mike, Mia and I finally got to meet baby Nick.  True to form, it wasn’t a complete visit until someone bled. This time it was Mia. 

Next, we visited Anja and Mia and I finally got to meet Baby Nick!  And of course it’s not a visit from us until someone bleeds.

I’m not wasting any time writing about Charlotte until I’m home but here’s a link to the few pictures I took. I forgot my camera and had to use Susan’s “back up” crappy camera, since she dropped her good one in the Catawba River.  Excuse the blurriness.  I got to freak her children out, eat far too much, binge on chocolate, burn through Susan’s gasoline rations, see my old friend Mike Hillier and generally act obnoxiously while around her.  High points include buying her husband Eddie an air freshener that simply says “I Love My Penis”, which will be awesome when he parks his car in the Microsoft employee lot and it’s hanging from his rearview mirror.  Susan received a fabulous high-quality magnet with a 1950’s housewife pushing a shopping cart with two children in it.  It says:  “This is so ICKY and wrong.”  We both peed our pants laughing at that one. 

I’ve been crying off and on tonight because I don’t want to leave Charlotte and Susan, and so far my pleas to move to Richmond have fallen on her deaf ears.

On another note, her dog that she had when we lived together - Delilah’s partner in crime - is still alive because she is much nicer than me and refuses to put Megan the Dog to sleep.  We came home tonight to an empty 1/2 pound bag of M&Ms and dog poo and barf everywhere.  Right then I was glad Delilah went to the great gazebo in the sky.  I’m really over cleaning up poo, pee and vomit. 

Finally - pictures from Halloween.  Apparently I had the wrong setting selected on my camera, so the pictures are not the greatest, but you will get a general idea of the cuteness.  Warning - if you don’t like pictures of dogs dressed in costume (I’m looking at you, @shedrivesajimmy), you might want to skip the slideshow

My sister-in-law threw a little shindig to celebrate the end of summer at her house on Saturday.  I’m like those giddy office supply commercials where the men/women skip around singing, “It’s the most WONDERFUL time. . . of the year!” as their children cringe and shoot them dirty looks.  Yay for school starting next week!  I have to get through one more week of full-time Arden care, then Little Ms. ‘Tude will be back in preschool 5 glorious half-days a week.  Did I mention it’s the most wonderful time of the year?