Okay, so here's the craziness that was our Spring Break Vacation to Destin, FL:
We planned to leave no later than 8am on Friday morning.
BUT, as you know, trying to get yourself and
Especially when my sister calls at 7:30am and tells me that she has to run "a few important things" over to pack into the back of my van because they won't fit into hers.
{And by "a few important things" I mean her folding chairs and beer...Family Vacation: here she comes!}
So, we finally pull out of the driveway about 9:15am, and get 15 minutes down the road and realize I forgot our vacation cash.
The cash I had been saving for 3 months for our trip.
Kind of important.
Soooo, we turn the car around and head back home to get it, and we FINALLY leave around 9:45am...only an hour and 45 minutes past schedule.
We start down the road and before long, I pull out the family games to keep us busy, and it was actually fun. A lot of fun. In fact, so much fun that we didn't even notice that we had driven an hour out of our way past our exit.
After some quick thinking, (thank you Lord for GPS on my Smart phone!), we drove across Kentucky to get back on track. No worries...this is vacation. Not gonna let anything ruin my fun. (Insert evil laugh here).
But after a couple of hours, my husband turns around to notice our youngest daughter has turned a slight shade of green and is being unusually quiet. After some brief questioning, I realized that scrubbing puke out of my leather seats was about to be in my near future.
I got off at the next exit and fortunately, I had brought some Dramamine and applesauce. Yay for us! It had been a close call, (too close for comfort!), but we had avoided disaster. And a mommy meltdown.
Back on the road, we were met with some lovely Nashville traffic, (oh yeah, we had only made it to Nashville at this point). I mean, isn't sitting in stand still traffic your favorite?! Kids totally LOVE that. And they NEVER have to go to the bathroom when you're in the middle of it.
I'm not being sarcastic at all.
Ahem.
Anyhoo, after several hours, and 3 miles closer to our destination, (which was Birmingham since we had a hotel booked for the night), we decide to stop for dinner where I had to load Faith up again with more Dramamine. Man oh man, you would think that kid would be completely knocked out, but lucky us, she was just tired, grumpy, and unwilling to give in to sleep. It was like a party! You know, the kind that makes you want to pull out your hair and jump out of the moving van!
But finally, we made it to the hotel for the night...where I discovered that I had forgotten to pack underwear...for any of us.
Off to the nearest Walmart I went.
{Note: Walmart's in The South have their own, unique thing going on, especially at 11pm. The craziness you see there far surpasses the craziness that I see at my local Walmart. Bra's are 100% optional even with see-through shirts, a full set of teeth are NOT the norm, and there is no weight limit for women, (and one possible man), wearing bikini tops with short shorts. Plus, if you thought pimps wearing full fur and gold teeth were a thing of the past, then you were W-R-O-N-G my friend. They are still livin' it up in the Birmingham, Alabama Walmart Parking Lot!}
Saturday morning was (thankfully) uneventful. We were on our way to Destin, and once we got there, we were pleasantly surprised to see how nice the place was. My kids couldn't wait to get into the pool, so we unpacked as quickly as we could, and jumped right into the fun.
After dinner and a good night's sleep, we got up and headed to the BEAUTIFUL Destin beach. When people say the sand is like powder, they're not lying. I mean it was absolutely the best beach I've ever been to. WAAAAY better than the Cesar's Creek beach we took our kids to last year in which we convinced them it was the Ocean. We'll never get away with that again. And don't even get me started on the gorgeous water. I felt like I was in the Caribbean it was so clear!
Our girls loved it so much that we stayed all day, and then headed home to go to dinner. But our dear old van (who happens to have about 129,000 miles on her), had other plans.
As soon as we started it, violent shaking occurred and the 'Service Engine Soon' light came on.
Not a mechanic, but I'm pretty sure that's not a good sign.
After calling AAA and them coming to tow our car to a local shop, we decided just to order pizza for dinner.
Who knew that most pizza places in Destin don't deliver after 8pm? Not me! And apparently, the Papa Johns there only carries thin crust pizza. Hmmmm....sandwiches for everyone!
The next morning we got a call from the shop saying that we needed all new spark plugs and wires. We told them to go ahead and make the repairs, (like we had another choice), and went to go pick up the car later that evening.
And after paying the $500, we go out to get in our car to find that it's STILL SHAKING!
We told the mechanic and he apologized and asked us to leave it overnight so they could fix it the next morning.
Isn't that what we had just paid the $500 for??
So, we go back to the house without a car, and spend some quality family time at the mercy of those who did have transportation.
But sometime during the night, Jeremy (my husband), says that his throat is hurting. And within hours he has a fever and is puking.
I told him we were going to the ER and after a little bit of negotiating, (AKA, him saying no and me demanding that he get into the #@*% car), we went. At 3am. After I
Doesn't this sound like a dream VACAY????
After a steroid shot and an antibiotic to treat his strep, we were sent on our way. I was beginning to wonder if maybe these were signs from above. Perhaps we should have stayed home? What in the world could happen next? I was afraid to ask more questions.
But the next day, our car came back with a (kind of) clean bill of health. She still slightly shakes and the Service Engine Soon light is still on, but we have been assured that there is nothing wrong. (I'm not questioning it, and neither should you!).
Plus, by the end of the day, Jeremy was feeling much better and we were even able to get out and have a date night.
The rest of the week was actually pretty great. We ate yummy food, (and ice cream almost every night), visited the picturesque town of Seaside, and spent a bunch of time in the water and in the sand.
And we really did get to spend some good family time. In fact, one highlight is that most of my family finally discovered I have this little thing called a blog. Not that they have ANY idea what that actually is, because they've never read it. Ever.
Oh families...gotta love em'!
But as crazy as it sounds, I can't wait to go back. I'll probably have a new van by then, and may make my entire family take precautionary antibiotics, but we'll be back!
OH. MY. GOODNESS. At least you know how to write a funny blog post out of it! Glad you're home safe & sound!
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