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.