Watercolor: Day 1

We finally have internet again! I've been without it for weeks now, so it's a weird feeling to have it again. I'm going to jump right in to the recap of our beach trip. This will take several installments because we took a LOT of pictures ;)

I wanted to start with Day 1 even though it was just a travel day. (And I looked back, and there are no pictures to go with this post... sorry!) The trip kind of got off to a rough start, and I was really worried that the whole trip would end up being super stressful and not fun. Thankfully, that was not the case at all, and I can now look back on our travel day and laugh.

We left on Sunday right after morning church. Of course on the day we're trying to leave town, we had some special music in church, and we ended up getting out of church a lot later than usual. We skipped Sunday School, and it was around 11:30 when we got on the road. We didn't make it far before we needed to stop for lunch. We stopped at a McAlister's about 40 minutes from home. We didn't even think about the fact that we would be getting there in the middle of the Sunday lunch rush. It was pretty packed. And as soon as we parked, the bottom fell out of the sky and it was pouring. We got drenched going in. We ordered our food, and Alaina was just super fussy. We realized that we had forgotten something in the car (I don't even remember what it was, but obviously it was vitally important because David went back out in the rain to get it). That left me in the restaurant with all three kids, and as soon as David went outside something set Alaina off, and she started shrieking. I was trying to soothe her, but the more I tried, the more angry she got and she just wailed louder. It was the kind of crying that would normally cause me to rush her out of the restaurant as quickly as possible, but since David was outside, I couldn't just leave Aubrey and Jude sitting by themselves. So, I just had to stand there in the middle of McAlister's with Alaina loosing her mind and everyone in the place giving me the stink eye. It was stressful. David and I ended up having to eat in shifts while the other held Alaina outside. I still don't know what was so upsetting to her, but it was one of my most stressful restaurant experiences as a mother. Whew!

We finally made it out of there and got back on the road. Remember that at this point, we were only 40 minutes from home. We expected Alaina to go to sleep after lunch, but she didn't. I think she slept maybe 20 minutes the whole trip. Thankfully, in spite of being awake ALL DAY, she actually did fairly well. There was definitely some fussing, but there really wasn't any outright screaming. Aubrey and Jude did ok too. They got pretty restless several hours in, but we had borrowed a DVD player and we were able to let them watch a movie. Sadly, the DVD player's batteries were dead after one movie, but it was nice while it lasted. Haha! We had to make several stops, and we even had to stop for dinner too. Our dinner experience wasn't quite as stressful as lunch, but it was close :-/ Alaina just wasn't feeling restaurants that day apparently, and she made sure we all knew. We were all just SO sick of the car by that point.

We FINALLY arrived in Watercolor after 8:00. Yes, what was supposed to be a 6 hour car ride took us from 11:30-8. OMG. When we pulled into Watercolor, I was SO thankful and thought we were home free. Ha! We noticed that the streets weren't extremely well lit. We found the street where our house was located with no trouble, but we could NOT see any house numbers. It was just so dark, and apparently the house numbers were tiny and hidden. We rode up and down that street what felt like a million times looking for our darn house. We called the concierge but of course at 8:00 on a Sunday night, no one answered. We kept pulling into random driveways trying to see house numbers, and I was so scared that someone was going to call the police. David even got out of the car one time and walked around a few houses. I know we looked totally sketchy. Haha! I honestly thought we were going to end up having to sleep in our car that night, and at that point, I really didn't even care. But PRAISE GOD, we FINALLY found our house! We went inside, and it was so nice! The kids loved being able to run around and stretch their legs! We had rented a crib for Alaina, and it was supposed to be set up. We found it in a pile in the closet. Ughhh. So, David went to work putting it together. Then we realized that we HAD to have some milk for the kids. So David went to buy milk while I got everyone ready for bed. It was late by the time we got the kids to bed. Alaina went down without a peep. Aubrey and Jude..... not so much! ;) They were sharing a room, and they were WIRED. They were up until after 10:00 shrieking and laughing. When they finally passed out, I've never been so relieved. Haha!

That day had straight up worn me out, so David and I went to bed as soon as Aubrey and Jude quieted down. I was just about to doze off when I glanced at David's bedside lamp and saw what I thought was a roach. I shot out of bed and ran to the bathroom. Turns out that no, it wasn't a roach, it was actually a hornet. (Which, in my mind, is much better than a roach, but I realize that I'm probably in the minority on that one.) David killed the hornet, and we went to sleep. Finally.

To Be Continued....