Family Vacation at the Lake

We decided that this year's family vacation wasn't going to be a big trip somewhere, especially with the girls being so young. My parents offered to let us stay at the lake house for a week and it was absolutely perfect!!

 

we played a lot outside

 

 

 

 

and inside with the girls. They are pros at sitting and seem to be so interested in moving and trying to figure out how to crawl

 

 

 

 

 

We went down to Houston for 2 days to see my Grandma, aunt and uncle. It was the first time for them to see the girls and I am SO glad we had this special time with them!!

 

 

My uncle took Michael and Bryson to Dave & Busters to run around and play while I stayed at the house with the girls and Grandma and Aunt. :)

 

We were treated to my uncle's fantastic food and aunt and Grandma's delicious desserts.

 

The girls turned 6 months old while we were there. I still can't believe how fast time is going by

 

 

The girls are seriously THE messiest eater I have ever seen!! They LOVE baby food, but also "raspberry" it out constantly. I was so embarrassed with the mess they made all over the table and floor. Oh the life of a mom ;)

 

 

 

 

The next day, the boys went to the aquarium and had a blast! B loved watching the tiger pounce at the glass when he walked in front of him. :)

 

We loved loved being able to spend time with them. They are so very special to me and I am so glad the girls were able to meet them!! 

 

 

 

 

We went back to the lake for the rest of the week.

 

 

 

 

Michael had been planning a "boys campout" in the cottage and Bryson was beyond thrilled about it!! The cottage is usually where my cousins sleep when they come, or Trey, or  sometimes Michael and Brandon sleep when we need extra space. To Bryson it's associated with "the big boys" and he seriously couldn't contain his excitement!!

 

Michael made it so special. He made popcorn, grabbed some candy, drinks ("lemonade in a can"-B's favorite!! aaand right before bed, a super huge treat!) a few toys and some books.

Bryson gathered everything together and was beaming as they walked down to the cottage. I took a quick picture and then let them have their "boy time"

He was cracking up Michael because he kept asking what "activity" they were going to do next and saying that he "loved their fun activities". Sometimes I feel like Bryson is 3.5 going on 15 years old. :)

 

 

There was a burn ban since has been so dry and hot, so we couldn't make a camp fire to make s'mores.

Next best thing?

 The grill! ;)

Messy and delicious!!

 

I am so thankful for our time away with our little big? wonderful family of 5. I have such wonderful memories of our family vacations growing up and I hope our kids will have their own special memories!

 

Belize

We are having SUCH an amazing, relaxing time in Belize!

It is beautiful, the weather is perfect and we literally have the entire resort to ourselves!

We went on a 2 tank dive yesterday and my dad, Steph, Michael and I were all by ourselves with the dive master. It's quite amazing!

We're chilling today beach-side and then going into 'town' tonight!!

Then, Blue Hole tomorrow!! If you watch The Bachelor, they went to The Blue Hole 2 weeks ago and went snorkeling. It's one of the top 3 places in the world to dive!!! Sooo excited!!

Ok, Putting the phone down to disconnect from the world again :)

Family Vacation. The kind where everything goes wrong.

{Caution: read at your own risk. May not be suitable for the queezy stomach.}

After a fun couple days in Houston, it was time for our first family vacation!! We woke up Saturday morning, ate breakfast with my family and then left for Galveston. My aunt and grandma gave us a few "just in case" items as we were walking out. One of them was meat tenderizer and alcohol (that we've always used on bee/ant/jellyfish stings) and also a bottle of maalox (to get rid of the pain of sunburn). I took them "just in case",  and we jumped in the car and headed  South.

We decided to go to Stewart Beach. It's a nice, family friendly beach with lifeguards, outdoor showers and restrooms and a couple shops. The beach was busy. Very busy. There were people everywhere! Next to the building with the restrooms and showers, there was a massive inflatable slide set up and a couple of guys sitting under an umbrella manning the station. {this is important to know for later. :) }

We unpacked the massive amounts of beach gear and found our spot in the sand. The weather was so nice (92) and was a nice break from the 110 temps in Dallas. The only thing that was hot was the sand. And it was HOT!!  Bryson, of course, sprinted straight into the "wawa" and belly flopped into the water. He LOVED splashing around!!  It was soo funny to watch him belly flop face first into the water, splash around, stand back up and then do it all over again!! Michael and I had so much fun watching Bryson enjoy himself so much :)

He even loved the sand. He spent quite a while filling up and emptying his bucket.

We played a little catch. But he wanted to go run around with older kids that were playing soccer.

We enjoyed ourselves for about 3 hours.

Swimming, splashing, playing in the sand, drinking lots of juice, and watching the birds. Everything was going so perfect...

until....

Around 1:00, I asked Michael to go checkout the big building with the showers to see if there was A/C and just to see what was there. I was going to take Bryson back down to the water to swim and I noticed that he was standing a little funny {like he needed to go to the bathroom}. I figured his feet were hot or something, even through he was standing on a blanket, so I picked him up and carried him to the water. He said "momma, oh no" on the way to the water, but I didn't really think anything of it. His toes barely touched the water when I noticed yellow stuff was dripping down. I looked down at him and realized he had a massived explosive diahrrea poop that flew straight out of his swim diaper. I'm talkin': up his back to his neck, down both sides of his legs, ALL over my stomach and down my legs. It was BAD. I swooped him up and all I could think to do was to run to the building (where Michael was) and wash him off in the shower. But, to  get there, I had to run through the hundreds of beach-goers that were looking at both of us with the utmost disgust. I never thought to run back to our umbrella to get my shoes or clothes, or a diaper--I just bolted straight to the building. At fist, it was no big deal, but after a minute or two of running through white fire, I was on the verge of tears; my feet were SO hot. Bryson was screaming bloody murder at this point and yelling, "momma, oh no. OH NO!!" the entire way. Several minutes later, I got to the inflatable slide, with the umbrella. I stood in the shade for a brief  second. I kept my back to the guys manning the slide so they couldn't see us covered in yellow goo, but i know, without a doubt, they could smell it. With Bryson still screaming, I look down and realize my swimsuit top broke and is literally hanging on by a thread. Bryson, of course, yanked on it.

So, at this point, I'm fighting back tears because of  my burning feet, both of us are completely covered in poop, my swimsuit top is about to fly open, Bryson is screaming and pulling on my barely there swimsuit top and Michael....well, Michael has absolutely no idea any of this has ever happened.

I finally spot him as he leisurely walks down the steps of the building. I  started running as fast as I could and as I sprinted past him, I yelled, "Bryson just pooped EVERYWHERE!" He dashed back to our umbrella to get my shoes and a diaper. I ran straight into the bathroom and yanked off his clothes and wiped him down with toilet paper. I realized he had 2 massive welps on the inside of his thighs, right under his diaper. :(  I had no idea what they were at this point; I just knew that if I touched them, he shot off and had more diahrrea. After I washed him off, and Michael brought me my shoes and the extra diaper, he ran back at full speed and packed up all of our massive ammounts of stuff all by him self. He was amazing. Oh, what I would give to have apicture of that!! Ha!

So, it's 1:15 at this point. All of this happened in a 15 minute time span! Michael drives the car up to get us, I set B in his car seat and he conks out before we even leave the beach grounds. I sent a picture of his legs to my dad and he thought it was a jellyfish sting which caused an alergic reaction with the instant, awful diahrrea. Thankfully, my Grandma and aunt were prepared and we had the meat tenderizer with us. We couldn't check into our hotel until 3:00, so we drove around Galveston for a couple hours.

We check in to the hotel, unpack the car, and get to our room. And our keys don't work. Great. Just add that to the list.  B is fussy and we're totally blocking the hall with all of our junk. Michael runs to get a worker and after messing with the door for a while, we finally get in our room. We all shower off and get clean and I decided to put the meat tenderizer and alcohol on his legs. He screamed bloody murder for a while and I just couldn't take it anymore, so I poured a bottle of water all over his legs to get it off. Seriously, I'm feeling like the worst mother in the world right now.

Even though it hurt like crazy, it seemed to help his legs. He started acting like himself again!!  We all got ready to go to The Strand for dinner. Michael had just finished ironing his shirt (see, I told you he was amazing!!) and we were putting up the ironing board and Bryson climbed up on the bed, stood up and tried to lean against Michael, but completely missed. So, just adding to the list AGAIN, he fell off and did a little side roll and hit his head on the leg of the ironing boad. He didn't cry or anything, but he has quite a battle wound from that little fall.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the end of our terrible, horrible, no good, 4 hour unending streak of bad luck.  {Phew}

We headed over to The Strand to eat dinner. We ate at a really fun place called Fisherman's Wharf. Bryson loved the boat in the water right behind our table. The food was delicious and it had such a fun atmosphere :)

We tried to go back to the beach in front of our hotel on Sunday morning, but we were only there for about 15  minutes when Bryson said, "Momma, ah duh" (all done).

We packed up and drove back to Houston to eat lunch my Grandma, Aunt and Uncle. It was fun to see them again and tell them about the trip that went terribly wrong! Haha. Then, to split up the drive again on the way back, we stopped at the lake again since my parents, sister and BIL were there. It was good for B to get out some energy!! :)

Even after this crazy crazy family vacation, we're still looking forward to many many more to come in the years ahead. It's times like these that make fun memories! :)