The day started bright and lovely, another good beach day.  Hubby and I go and buy some floats today, and that turned out to be a great idea.  The kids had fun riding the floats aka surf boards on their stomachs as the waves crashed them into the shore.  I got myself an innertube and just bobbed around like a cork watching my kiddos.  Ethan had a few meltdowns today.  Poor little guy.  I only mention this to set the stage for what happens later in the day…..ya know the penis incident.  For those of you thinking (or hoping) the penis incident somehow involved my husband, well I wish it had, might have been less traumatic for me anyway, and I don’t mean that the way it sounds like I mean that, it’s just he’s an adult and would have handled it without me having to get involved….maybe….I just hope that theory doesn’t get tested because I don’t want a second incident.  Don’t worry, I’m getting to it!  I have to warm up to the subject because I feel like I might be suffering from some PTSD.

My oldest daughter and I are the first to depart from the beach for the day.  We carry as much as we can, and by the time we got home, I was about ready to die.  Yes, it’s only a 3 minute walk, but 2 minutes of that is through sand, and trying to walk on sand weighed down by floats and towels is a feat worthy of an olympic athlete, or at least that’s what I tell myself as I schlepp towards our house.  I am a hot sweaty nasty mess by the time I reach the house.  I shower, and sit down with my book.  The house is peaceful and quiet.  I’m enjoying my alone time until my oldest daughter comes into the house near tears.  I had noticed on the beach what looked to be a bug bite right next to her bikini line, on her inner thigh.  I wasn’t really trying to look, but it was huge.  I casually mentioned it, and after looking down, she was like “OMG!”  I did mention it casually!  Jeez.  Luckily, I brought our entire medicine cabinet with me.  She’s giving me the gory details of her “bite”, but the more she talks about it the more I think it’s probably a boil or cyst from an ingrown hair.  Now this is a very delicate subject and I’m sure she’ll hate me for mentioning it but I have to set the stage for my fragile state of mind by the time hubby got home with the other 3 kids.  The internet is the worst thing to surf when you are unsure what ailment is troubling you.  Type in a list of symptoms and you’ll see what I mean.  She comes back down after doctoring it with this little gem of theory, “Mom, do you think a spider bit me and laid eggs in my skin?!?!??!”  Seriously?  Can that even happen?  She swears it can.  I silently begin to panic but I don’t want to let her know I’m panicking.  I enter in a description of the ”bite” in google and the first hit is Brown Recluse Spider bite.  Now I’m freaking out!!!!  However, I do manage to not hyperventilate and pull myself together.  After further research, I come to the conclusion that it’s not a bite, but a boil.  Not pleasant to be sure, but certainly a better alternative than being the host body for thousands of Brown Recluse spider babies.

Okay, I sit back down with my book and continue reading while practicing my deep breathing exercises.  As I am reading, I think I hear something.  Yes, there it is again.  What is that?  It sounds like…omg yes, it’s man-child screaming.  The first child I encounter is our middle daughter who quickly informs me that she got stung by a jellyfish.  Wha?  I am trying to be appropriately horrified and concerned but man-child’s wailing has reached epic proportions and I’m pretty sure broke the sound barrier all over again.  She appears to be ok, she’s not crying and all her limbs are intact, so I ask what is wrong with man-child.  Both girls shrug their shoulders.  Apparently, they are all very irritated with him right now.  He’s walking funny, and holding his pants.  Now, maybe it’s because I’m his mother, but I can definitely tell the difference in this crying.  This isn’t I’m tired and cranky and sunburned cry, this is I am in excruciating pain cry.  I immediately set to calming him down.  Hubby is puffed up like an inflatable hulk doll, complete with veins popping and an eye twitch, his jaw is working and I can tell I will get no help or explanation from that corner.  The girls are busy avoiding me.  Okay, so apparently no one is going to tell me what happened and man-child can’t talk, he looks like he’s about to throw up.  I get him somewhat calmed down and start taking off his swimsuit.  Here is where things get interesting.

We get his swim shirt pulled off (greatest invention ever btw) and then I try to take his pants off.  As I tug them down, he starts screaming all over again, and I’m like what the heck!  I look down and that’s when I see it.  Stop reading now if you want to avoid the gory details.

Man-child is circumcized, and that ridge of skin around the head of his penis is the area of concern.  Somehow, and God only knows how this happened, I’ve never seen or heard of this happening, certainly didn’t even know it was possible, but apparently it is and its happened to man-child.  A piece of this ridge of skin has gotten sucked into one of the holes in the netting of his swimsuit.  OMG, I shudder just thinking about it.  Seriously, I can’t feel my legs and my arms and fingers are tingly.  I tried pulling on it (now I feel a little throw up in the back of my throat), but it won’t come out and he is screaming louder!!!!  I yell for help!  I mean hubby has a penis, he’ll know what to do.  Admittedly, at this point he doesn’t know what’s going on, but I would think my panicked voice as I kneel in front of my son trying to gently disengage his penis from his swimsuit might have given him pause to at least come over and find out what is wrong!!!!!  Man-child looks down and sees that his penis is stuck in the mesh and he starts to hyperventilate!  I can’t blame him, I am doing the same!  OMG what if I have to cut it off!  Not the whole penis, but this part of skin that’s stuck!   I can’t breathe.  Even rewriting this is making the panic start all over again.  There are a thousand ideas, each more horrible than the last, running through my brain in this moment.  I have almost convinced myself that my poor son will live his life as a eunuch when the skin pops out!  OH thank God.  Thank you thank you thank you thank you God!  He immediately stops crying of course and I get him calmed down as I yell at my husband.  I can only imagine what our neighbors thought as I yell “his penis was stuck!”  I am thinking about my poor sweet boy walking the whole way home with his penis like that, each step must have been torture and he was getting yelled at and manhandled by both my husband and my daughters.  In their defense, I mean they couldn’t have possibly known, and he had several meltdowns over nothing earlier in the day, so I’m not blaming them, but in this moment I am the lioness and my cub has been injured and everyone is going down!

I got him showered, and calm and happy once again, but I’m thinking he’s never going to put on a swimsuit again!  I’m not sure I ever want him wearing one again.  I think I’ll make him wear underwear under his swimsuit next time.  Yes, that’s what I’ll do.  So, after the trauma’s of the day, we all head out for some much needed fun at Destin’s Harbor Walk Village.  I order the biggest drink they have, I mean I feel I deserve it.  Thankfully, the rest of the night passes without incident.  We get home and light some sparklers up before heading to bed.

Up next:  Wonderworks Science Place in Panama City and more beach fun (hopefully without trauma).  Enjoy our pics of the day (and no I didn’t take a pic of the incident!)

This is the entrance to Harbor Walk Village and the home of the World’s largest Magnolia Tree.  It was huge!

Dad, don’t worry, your youngest granddaughter was able to get over the trauma of her childhood incident with a sparkler, it’s all good now

This pic scares me….

As we finished our peaceful walk, we walked up to the showers to rinse off our feet, and the phrase “the world is going to hell in a handbasket” came to mind several times.  It’s something I always hear seniors say, and I usually laugh and make some snarky comment about how I will never sound old or say things like “back in my day” or “kids these days”.  I try to stay hip on the music scene (although the girls tell me the word hip is antiquated and makes me sound old).  I’d like to think despite all comments to the contrary, I am a young almost 40.  The reason I state it like this is that I often hear from the seniors in the retirement home where I work that I must have robbed the cradle to marry my husband.  I know, rude right?  I mean it wasn’t like it was one offhand comment, I get it from everyone who comes to listen to his little sermonettes at the Protestant service on Tuesday nights when he’s been asked to speak.  For the record, the man is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay older than me, and he has crows feet.  I comfort myself by saying they only think he looks so much younger because he’s short, but it doesn’t really make me feel better.  And then there was the horrible day at the liquor store.  I was quite pleased that when I bought my booze here on vacation in the liquor store next to the Publix grocery store that he carded me and didn’t ask if my husband was my son.  Oh yes, I kid you not.  For those of you that haven’t heard this story, let me elaborate and for those of you that have feel free to skip ahead.  I stopped to by some Skinny Girl Margarita’s to take to my mom’s house, and I wasn’t feeling well.  I had no makeup on and my head was all stuffy.  We go into the store, I pick out what I need and the girl behind the cash register asks me if the guy standing behind me is with me.  I say yes (it was hubby).  She then asks “is he your son?”  My son?  MY SON!?!??!?!?!??!?!?  Are you f*&#%*@g kidding me?  My son?  I am staring at her incredulous.  I am pretty sure I yelled back at her “NO!  He’s my HUSBAND!”  At this point, husband comes up and asks if everything is okay.  I’m like…ummm NO.  This person just asked if you were my son.  She at this point asks to see his ID acting as if she’s done nothing wrong or completely insulting.  Then to add more salt in my wound, husband says “it’s ok, no big deal”, in what looked like an effort to comfort HER?  Oh no, he didn’t!  I look at him and say “oh sure it’s ok with you, you weren’t accused of being my FATHER!”  At this point my mom calls me, so in front of the cash register and anyone standing nearby, I reiterate the story, my voice dripping with disdain as I stare daggers at this cash register chick.  It was an extremely demoralizing moment, and that liquor cow didn’t even apologize!  She didn’t even act abashed or anything.  That’s what made it worse, that upon really looking at my husband she apparently still thought it a legitimate question.  My ego is likely never to recover.  I now know how Barbara Bush must have felt being the butt of all those Saturday Night Live skits.

Anyway, I don’t know what made me digress into that story, but I guess I could say, that I get how some people might act in a certain way in public depending on the situation and how someone watching me that day might have thought I was being a bitch and making a big deal over essentially nothing, and going out of my way to make the cash register girl feel about 2 inches tall.  They don’t know what I hear at work, or that I was feeling rotten that day, so I might have left that store leaving a negative impression on everyone in it.  Not that I’ll ever go back and give them my business!  So that sort of segways into my next story.  Not really, but I’m going to make it work.

Hubby and I are standing in line to wash our feet off, and this gaggle of kids comes running in and bowls over both of us to get to the little showers.  Ummm ok.  What I assume is the dad’s come walking up and I am thinking to myself “ok kiddies, now you’re going to get it!”  But no.  The dad’s of these boys also cut in line.  I stand there incredulous, my mouth literally hanging open.  So I immedietly launch into passive aggressive mode, making loud comments about how rude some people are and hey don’t worry about us standing over here patiently waiting our turn in THE LINE.  Finally, we get our turn.  I’m still mumbling under my breath.  Hubby washes his feet and then holds the button so I can wash mine.  As I am washing my feet, one of the boys comes running over, knocks into me, shoves my foot out of the way and proceeds to stick his foot under the water.  At first the dad’s just stand there.  I can’t even make eye contact because I’m afraid I will go off!  Finally, he grabs his son and does he apologize?  No!  He tells his son, okay that’s enough, your feet are clean.  Seriously?

I don’t claim to be the perfect parent, and raising kids is hard, so hard.  But who does that?  I’m still shaking my head.  Even if my kids did act like that (which I don’t think they would), I would have been mortified and apologizing for them as I dragged them to the back of the line.  Hubby and I spent the whole walk home talking about what’s wrong with the world these days, which made me sound exactly like my seniors at work.  I’ve never really felt almost 40 except last night and that day in the liquor store.  I just wonder what entitled boy and girls with no sense of other people or the world around them grow up to be like.  Then again, maybe I’m just old-fashioned, and people my age probably said the same thing about me when I was a little girl.  Maybe.

Okay, enough of that.  Here are some pics of our little community by the beach.  Today we are all headed to the beach for some fun in the sun and then on to Harbor Walk Village for some window shopping and dinner.

Now, regarding the balance of our kids (the little women, or
mini-coven) and our supposed desire to consistently include them in the blog… I
will only comment with a question:  Is it
not the GOD given right of a parent to embarrass their teenage children?  I mean we spend all their infant/toddler
years doting over and caring for them, we watch them blossom into beautiful,
eloquent & amazing young adults… I was under the impression that the parent’s
ability to embarrass them was a gift from God to relieve the stress of trying
to figure out how to get them past the teenage years without going crazy!  Besides, like the wife stated, when they
provide substantial amounts of material, how can we resist?!

Moving on to the beach.
Once again, the water and the beach here are wonderful.  I have to say, that I LOVE the beach.   During
my afternoon run’s, passing by the houses, I more than once entertain the idea
of living here and how awesome that would be.
Still, I am sure like most things in life, the newness of the place
would wear off quickly and that would be a shame.  That is the great part about vacations… you
get to enjoy the best parts, keep them in your memory, and come back to them
fresh next year!   We had a great
time.  That Man-Child hardly gets out of
the water and watching the ladies play in the ocean is wonderful to behold.  The real highlights of yesterday’s excursion
come exclusively for me from our fellow tourist/visitors.  First there was the guy strolling up and down
the beach in his “man-kini”… you know the European/Speedo/diaper look…  REALLY?
NOT attractive dude.   Next, there
is the lady and her guy-friend who came to the beach accompanied by their
freaking DOG.   UGGHHH!   I mean it says NO DOGS/ANIMALS on the beach
in huge bold caps on the sign.  I guess
the rules don’t apply to some people.  I
often wonder what the thought process is for someone like that.   To my delight, the pregnant women who
yesterday sported a bikini had seen fit to where a one piece today… the bikini
gave a whole new meaning to the phrase, “let it all hang out”.   I swear, this place is better than the local
Wal-Mart in Po-Dunk, USA.

After the beach we took a trip to FudPuckers for food,
merriment and gators.  We avoided this
place last year, but I am glad we went.
The Gators were pretty cool, food was good, and we dumped sufficient funds
between dinner and the gift shop to get a gold sponsor plaque! (kidding).   If you’re ever in this neck of the woods, I
would recommend a visit.  I mean, you
have not felt pucked unless you do.

On to the beach…!

Attitudes were a little frosty around the vacation home after my husband leaked the “boobie-gate” story.  The girls hate the blog.  Let me rephrase.  They love the embarrassing and insulting stories about mom, dad and even their little brother, but they have made it quite clear that they are merely innocent bystanders in our vacation adventures and to treat them as anything other than mere spectators would be social suicide and met with resistance and even…war.  If you have teenage daughters, then you certainly know what form this so-called “war” would take and you would understand our reticence in mentioning them in any way, shape or form.  We are quite frankly, outnumbered and outmatched.  They run from the camera, and I am forced to creep around corners, catch them with their eyes closed, cajole, plead, and even beg if I must for a photo-op.   Quite frankly, they scare us
and we aren’t ashamed to admit it. Luckily, there is usually enough ammunition between myself, my husband
and man-child that it is easy to respect their wishes for the most part.  However, sometimes they produce such gems of
awesomeness that we cannot resist.  We are merely human after all.  Besides, this is the same girl who smashed her naked butt cheeks up against the bathroom door and asked her sisters if the frosted glass was truly opaque or not.  It’s hard to feel sorry for her.  I did notice she wore a different swimsuit today, one that tied around the neck. Although, I’m not sure that will help her.  If she truly wants to keep the sisters protected from the crashing waves and the pervy eyes of onlookers, she needs to
adopt the muumuu style, old-lady swimsuit her mother favors.  My boobs are under Fort Knox style
protection.  It takes me a good hour to even get out of my swimsuit, especially if it’s wet.  Nothing is freeing my twins.

Another quick note about yesterday’s blog, my husband touched on our differences in perspectives and how I exaggerate or just flat out make things up.   My husband’s entire supposition formed around the basis that I would voluntarily take a mood-altering drug in order that his drive might be peaceful and quiet and my “backseat driving” would be kept to a minimum or better yet, stopped altogether.  The problem isn’t my exaggeration or our differing perspectives; it’s his lack of imagination.  If the desired outcome is that I am quiet, and we all know the only way that is happening is if you drug me, or bound and gag me, and the only way to do either of those things would be by force…then voila, you have the best option available with the least amount of blood on
your hands…the tranquilizer dart.  He needn’t get any closer to me than necessary. I’ll never see it coming.  I might
be angry when I come out of it, but hey “better to ask for forgiveness than permission”, or at least that’s what my dad says.  For a self-admitting planner of absolutely everything, he didn’t fully commit to his idea. That’s why so often in our war of words, I win.  My brain goes where no mere mortal man dares to venture.  It’s a scary place, my mind.  Welcome.

Okay, enough about yesterday.  Today, we hit the beach again.  It was another beautiful day.  We had only one wardrobe malfunction, but thankfully that belonged to the man-child.   The waves were particularly rough today, and
my son often found his swim trunks halfway down his butt cheeks.  However, mortified or embarrassed, he did NOT
feel.  In fact, the surest way to ensure man-child likes something is if any member of his family does not like it.  So while his sisters kept trying to pull his pants up, and shook their heads in disgust when he not only refused but then had the audacity to shake his bare behind in their faces, man-child enjoyed himself enormously.  On a side note, we are pretty sure he was stung by a jellyfish yesterday.  Yes, we hang our heads in shame as our words and phrases from yesterday replay in our minds, “I’ll give you something to cry about”, “When we get home….” and “if you don’t stop that crying right now!”  Yes, not one of our finer moments as parents,
but he need never know.  I mean, it’s not as if we know for sure anyway.  Nope, this is going in the parent vault along with all the things we did as teenagers and young adults that we deny to our children. Maybe someday we will trot it out, probably after he has children of his own and we want to make him feel better about his mistakes.

Here are some pics to share:

Here is man-child doing some push-ups on the beach, he wants to forever be known as “mini-sitch”.  His form needs some work though.

When I yelled “Situation”, look who looked up….

Poor Emily, she kept trying to build her sandcastle in the path of the surf, and she worked on it for 2 hours never once coming to the conclusion that maybe she should move it higher on the beach…  We could have told her, but it was too much fun to watch.

And some more pics:

(I can hear the screaming now, when she sees I posted this one hee hee)

Man-child is to the left of his father in this pic.  Nope, you can’t see him, he’s completely under the wave.  Makes my heart stop everytime, but he loves it!

Feeling sunburned and exhausted, we leave the beach and head back to the house for an afternoon nap before we head out to dinner at FudPuckers.  No, I’m not saying it wrong.  That’s what it’s called.  The title of this blog can also be found on one of the awesome t-shirts my oldest daughter purchased from the gift shop.  In the middle of the restaurant is “Gator Alley”, where they house over 80 alligators.  They do a show, and afterwards you can hold the gator.  Here is a pic of my two bravest children:

The gator-keeper at one point said, “when the gators wiggle like that they usually need to go to the bathroom”.  Seriously?  Ugh.

Here are some pics of the gators we shared our dining experience with:

I myself drank a “fudpuckerita”, couldn’t tell you what was in it, but it came with a side-shot and I needed it.  The food was okay.  I wouldn’t rave about it, but it wasn’t horrible.  I got the baked scallops, and my husband got what looked like to be a fried plate of fried fish and fried shrimp and fried french fries.  I was a little disappointed he didn’t attempt the man versus food option, the “fudinator”.  I would have paid money to watch that, but alas, perhaps another time.  My husband wanted to purchase this t-shirt that said “Fudpucker Tequila:  helping ugly people have sex since 1982″.  When I looked at him aghast, he said “what?”  What do you mean what?  You buy that shirt what does it say about me!  “Oh” he says.  Pfffft.  So instead, I let my oldest daughter purchase it for her boyfriend, I hope his parents have a good sense of humor.   The atomsphere was loud and there was music playing so much of my husbands conversation with my two oldest daughters, I couldn’t even hear, but at one point this little girl comes around our table to get into her chair behind us and right when she is standing behind my husband he says “sweaty balls”, loudly and succinctly.  The poor little girl looks at me and all I can do is apologize.  I don’t know what he was talking about and I don’t want to know.

My poor-sunburned sweeties

I’ve written this blog, three times now.  I’ve had some technical difficulties and at one point this computer almost got thrown into the ocean.  Thank goodness we have a quiet day planned.  Some of us are hanging poolside today and others will head to the beach.

I can’t wait to see what the day will bring us, and as I sat at the beach yesterday, I could only reflect on how beautiful heaven must be if God can make our fallen world look this magnificent.

Cheers!

Ok.  First things
first.   I want to point out the reason
for our “He-Said, She-Said” format.
This environment provides fun and entertainment for the reader but also
illustrates how men and women see and hear things differently.   Case in point:  I clearly said that on the first leg of the
drive I lovingly suggested that, “…if I could
tranquilize her for this part of the drive I would.  Nothing major… just a hit of oxycodone or
something to relax.”   Somehow this was translated into me SHOOTING
my wife with a tranquilizer dart!!  I
mean, that has all kinds of negative connotations!  Aiming and pointing a weapon, shooting said
weapon, sharp painful darts, etc, etc.   I
was transformed from a loving caring husband who mildly suggested an oral
sedative to calm the nerves for the trip (that is in no way, shape or form an
admission to my supposed bad driving skills by the way),  to some sort of wild hunter with a .45
caliber tranquilizer rifle stalking and shooting my unsuspecting wife!!!  Oh well, moving on….

There are some things that she did state correctly.  Normally, I am pretty careful about what and
when I eat.  I have found like most men
my age, once you get past the 40 year mark, the transformation of food into
sizable “love handles” happens way too quickly.
Additionally, once I add some inches to my personal floatation device
they are much harder to get rid of!!
However, there is something about a road trip that weakens my defenses
and sparks my ability to rationalize eating just about anything.  I did try to limit my intake to two hour
intervals; however, I did shovel something into my mouth on a regular basis. In
my defense, one could consider the beef jerky and peanuts healthy treats
right?  Yea… I’m going with that.  On the other hand, the Wendy’s “Baconator”
might have been overkill!    Hey, I did run about 3 miles yesterday in the
blazing sun, and I will run that every day.
Of course, I may only be burning off my regular 3-Guinness a night habit…
DAMNIT!   Hey, I’m on vacation right!

On to the beach we go.

Our first day on the Emerald Coast was fantastic!  The water was really nice and clear and the
beach’s here are clean, white and wonderful.
Moreover, we have a public beach access point just around the corner
from our house!    Now I must mention only two highlights of our
beach festivities.   Let’s get the obvious out of the way
first:  I want to go on record as saying that
I was minding my own business, relaxing in a beach chair and watching my son
frolic in the waves when these two teenage boys commented on my apparent
likeness to that “situation” guy from Jersey Shore.  I will also admit that if I bear a physical
likeness to that TOOL I will humbly accept it as a compliment… beyond that… I
only pray that I am NOTHING like that ego-maniac!  Yes, I have an ego.  Yes, I comprehend my innate weakness towards
vanity. (After all, I have proclaimed that my medieval Knight name would have
been, Ser Jerry the Magnificent)
However, that guy takes self-love to eye-popping proportions!!   Hey, I
took the freaking picture for comparison… like I said, from a physical
perspective there are worse things I could be compared to I guess.

Moving on to the real, “situation” on the beach
yesterday.  I will keep this short and
warn you that it is not for the faint of heart.
I am still a tad traumatized.    While playing in the ocean with all three of
my daughters, I turn at one point only to see that my oldest daughter is
unwittingly experiencing a wardrobe malfunction with her swimwear and flashing
the entire area.  (Picture the incident
at the super bowl a few years ago with Janet Jackson… yes that one).   So, I turn, see the…. You know… immediately
cover my eyes and begin mentally reciting the rosary to cleanse myself and
scream NOOOOOOO….  DANGER… DANGER…. GIRL,
COVER YOURSELF!!!   The poor girl turns about 5 shades of red and
fixes the problem.   She proceeds to tell
me how she will be scarred for life and I ask her how she thinks I Freaking
feel!!!???   Definitely a reality TV show
moment.   Good times.

All in all, it was a great day topped off with a trip to
this really cool shopping village called, The Commons”.   The girls roamed freely, the man-child  got to jump, bounce and fly on bungee cords
and I was again feeling grateful for my wonderful family.

Next stop – The family pandemonium-money sucking trip to
Fudpuckers and Alligator Feedings… hopefully the wife is not entertaining ideas
of feeding me to the beast!

Peanuts, 2 bags of beef jerky, a bag of Munchos, chick-fil-a, whataburger, wendy’s and probably more I can’t even remember, and not only all that but when he finished his snacks he tried to pilfer off the kids and then had the audacity to complain when our oldest daughter’s bag of chips ahoy cookies were gone.  He actually asked her if she chewed or just swallowed them whole.  Hello, pot I’d like you to meet kettle.

We headed to the beach today!  Here are some pics of our fun in the sun.

The water is clear and warm and amazing.  No algae or excessive seaweed this year.  And we only had one beach incident, although it was rather major and embarrassing.  Man-child got a little rash, we probably stayed out for to long, and I’m sure being exhausted had a lot to do with it, but still….  He hiked his swim trunks up so high, I’m pretty sure he flashed some people, and if that weren’t bad enough it was accompanied by pitiful wailing and high-pitched bawling, following by declarations of “It hurts!”, “I can’t stop crying”, “carry me”, “I can’t walk!”.  It got so bad, some nice lady came by and offered to pull our beach cart which was loaded down with chairs, towels and an umbrella.  I knew it was bad when I looked back and see that vein pulsing in hubby’s neck and forehead.  Oh boy.  It was a loooooooooooooong walk home, or at least is seemed that way.  After, man-child was showered and dried off, I took a look at the cause of all this distress.  He pointed to it, but I still didn’t see anything.  In his defense, my contacts were a little cloudy, so I set him under the light, so I could see better.  Oh, there it is.  A teensy tiny little spec of a rash, I’m not even sure it could be called a rash, but I took it very seriously and we “doctored” it right away.  I don’t know where I went wrong.  When he was a baby, I didn’t coddle him.  I’m more of the rub some dirt in it type of mother.  I’m hoping this is just a phase, but my goodness, that was an awful lot of hoopla for such a tiny little pinprick of a boo boo.  Of course, later he declared it my fault because we stayed at the beach too long.  Naturally.  When I pointed out that I suggested we leave earlier, and he argued, he declared “but mom, I’m just a kid!”.  Oh goodness me.

The highlight of the day clearly occurred though as two teenage boys told hubby that he looked exactly like….

wait for it….

oh it’s worth the wait…..

trust me…

Apparently, my husband is a dead ringer for….

Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino (from Jersey Shore).

I have included a pic of each of them, you can decide for yourselves.  I have to enter a disclaimer here though.  My husband categorically denies any resemblance whatsoever and even though the boys followed their declaration with “dude, it’s a compliment”, he wasn’t feeling very flattered.  It was quite the discussion at dinner to even be allowed to include this tidbit, but it was certainly the highlight of my day.  So here are the pics (notice despite his protestations otherwise, he did pose for the comparison pic)

I have to giggle.

After dinner, we headed to Destin Commons, an outdoor shopping experience.  Here are some pics:

Man-child doesn’t look very excited here, but he loves this contraption.  It’s one of his favorite things to do.  Other kids are jumping and laughing, but otherwise pretty quiet.  Not our boy.  No, he is streaming a running commentary on everything from his mad jumping skills to how much fun he is having to how many back flips he could do if he wanted to.  He was a big hit with the staff, and notice the harness doesn’t seem to bother the “rash”.

All in all, it was a fun and relaxing day, and pretty uneventful for us anyway.  Tomorrow we have more beach fun, and dinner at Fudpuckers complete with gator feedings!  Woo hoo!

Here we go!  The 2^nd
annual family vacation!  I must begin by
admitting to the reader that I have a superpower. (No, it is not my striking
good looks) What is it you ask?  I have
the ability to Worry and Stress at superhuman levels!   I know, I know… I have read all the scripture
in this regard and I am painfully aware of what it says… but still, I worry… a
LOT.   (Is that bad…? should I worry
about my worry?)  Now, being the man that
I am, I have found ways to use my superpower for good.  By trade, I deal with demand planning, sales
forecasting and fulfillment.  I live
inside spreadsheets, statistical tools, planning models, etc.   I have measurements to analyze the validity
of my measurements!  It is FANTASTIC!!!   Within this realm, my power of worry is
AWESOME.   However, with the light, there must also be
darkness and I find that my abilities become somewhat burdensome as we plan the
family vacation.    The night before our
trip, I thought of every possible scenario that could go wrong with the van
(aka Church Bus) rental plan.  Next, I
spent hours calculating routes, unforeseen expenses, what to pack, when to
pack, the weather, what my workout plan would be (that’s important!), possible
escape plans from alien abduction all this and I have not even begun to discuss
what might happen to our house when we are gone!!!   As it turns out, everything worked out
fine.  I went for my morning workout,
picked up the Church Bus without incident, got packed, and most importantly
figured out a workout plan for the stay and we managed to leave as scheduled.

As the wife mentioned, we are taking the high road this year.  The family church bus is rolling!  I thought about getting some of that white
shoe polish and writing “Follow me to the RAPTURE”, or “Exposure to the SON could
protect against BURNING!!”   Don’t worry…
I held back.

I take the first leg of the trip.   This is the fun part…getting out of the DFW
metroplex via LBJ Freeway to I-20.  I
love my wife, God knows I love my wife.
That said, if could tranquilize her for this part of the drive I
would.  Nothing major… just a hit of oxycodone
or something to relax.  I mean, if there
is a better way to get on LBJ please someone tell me now!!!       I recall the immortal words of Winston
Churchill, “If you’re going through hell,
keep going”.   We make it out of the DFW, and hit the open
road.  After our first stop, we enter the
lovely state of Louisiana and finally feel like we are getting somewhere.  I know we are in Louisiana in two ways…first
the sign, Welcome to Louisiana” and second the fact that the roads have gone to
crap!!  I mean really…?!   At
this point, I recall getting a little drowsy.
I was doing the whole “blinking” thing.
So the wife takes over at the wheel.
Now she says that we hit some rain or something… I don’t recall really…
I was passed out in the back seat with the Man-child.  The next thing I knew, we were moving into
the land of Mississippi.

We stop in Vicksburg for some refreshment and rest.  The wife wants to stop here… I want to push on
further. (I mean, on my memorized planning models for the trip, we need to push
on to maintain optimum performance measurement and schedules).  In retrospect, I will only say that it MIGHT
have been a good idea to stop.  Why you
ask?   Well, as we fly by what I think
was the city of Jackson; we find that between Jackson and Hattiesburg, there is…
wait for it…. NOTHING!!   Well, I mean if
trees, dirt and the occasional shanty count then there was something.  So, after pooh-poohing my idea to stay under
the JESUS billboard motel, we push on and find a Holiday Inn just outside of
Hattiesburg.  After check-in, we immediately
proceed to become law-breakers by executing the Dog-smuggling plan.  This consists of a lookout, a cute
unsuspecting dog, and a blanket.  You can
fill in the details.

To make a long story short, we arrive at the house, and God
smiles again and we check in two hours early.
After a trip to the grocery store, we start having fun.  I will stop to say at this point that for all
the worry and stress, I peek out the window at my family enjoying time in the
pool and feel a deep sense of gratitude.
My wife glows while surrounded by her children, and God whispers to me… “smile
and see the blessings I have provided”.
Life is good.  On to the beach!

Hubby takes the first part of the drive, and he rejects all my offers for carfun awesomeness (typically).  I tried a scavenger hunt, and he complained that the items were impossible to find.  I will admit when he almost killed us by swerving to miss a blown-out tire piece (a drastic over-reaction in my humble opinion, when I was driving and that box was in the road, I just ran over it…no problemo), and our scavenger hunt item was ambulance, I thought maybe we should play a different game.  It seemed to portend bad tidings.  So then we played a rousing game of Mad Libs, and even though he couldn’t stop laughing, he proclaimed it “stupid”.  So, I finally gave up on car games and just tried to enjoy the drive.  I notice at some point that hubby seems to be blinking his eyes alot and there was that one time when he crossed over into the shoulder and it had those grooves that make a godawful screeching sound when you drive over it.  So I thought maybe it was time I drove church bus.  Now, while hubby was driving, the weather was sunny, the traffic minimal, and not a breeze to be found.  I start driving and I get ferocious winds, streaming buckets of rain so hard I couldn’t see the hood of my own car, scary lightening and road construction!  If all that wasn’t enough, I am driving when we cross the bridge from Louisiana to Mississipi.  I might have mentioned my phobic fear of bridges in previous blogs.  So, in the driving rain and harsh cross-winds, I am stuck on this tiny two lane rickety bridge sandwiched between a flimsy guardrail and a semi-truck!  My knuckles are white, my shoulders are hunched to my ears and I feel a tic in my left eye.  I might stroke out.  But I don’t.  Whew.

We decide to stop for a quick bite and there are like 6 hotels within walking distance, and I suggest we stop here for the night, but nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, hubby thinks we could drive a bit longer.  We eat and then hit the road again, this time hubby is driving.  The only thing better than driving in the aforementioned conditions was listening to hubby and man-child bicker in the backseat.  I swear at one point I heard hubby cry out “he’s touching me”.    Now it’s getting dark, we don’t know anything in the area, we are headed into Jackson, and he likes none of my suggestions for places to stay.  We take our exit to Hattiesburg, and stop at this light and I kid you not, beyond the light is a black abyss of nothingness.  At this point, hubby admits we should have stopped when I suggested it.  HA!  Can I get that in writing please?  He suggests we stay at this swanky little motel sandwiched between a pawn shop and a huge sign that reads “Jesus Christ, the Ultimate Problem-Solver”.  Call me a snob, poke fun but I’d rather sleep in church bus.  So we venture on.  Finally, we hit a somewhat populated area and I spy a Holiday Inn.  Of course, it has a NO DOGS policy and we have Danny, but I decide to venture on and get two rooms.  I try to casually mention the dog policy to hubby, hoping he won’t freak out.  He freaked out.  The man worries about EVERYTHING.  My daughter and I covertly launched ”Operation Dog Smuggling” and with the help of a brightly crocheted blanket, a hunched over 14 year old and me peeking around doorways, we were able to sneak the dog into the room with none the wiser!

After a good nights sleep, we continue our journey to Destin.  Now, we are relying on my GPS to get us there, and it hasn’t failed us yet.  My husband often accuses me of exaggeration, but let me say that this next part is written word for word exactly how he said it, with no embellishment at all.  I said “you will need to take a right on Smith Street”.  His response “WHAT?!?!?!  What crazy backroads are you taking us on now???  I can see the headlines now,  unkown family found massacred by serial killer in the remote backwoods of Mobile, Alabama in a church bus”.  What can I even say to this?  I bite my tongue and I tried to stifle back my sigh, but I mean really, I’m only human.  Apparently if it’s not an interstate it doesn’t count as a road.  Despite his doubts, protestation and complaints, we made it to our house.  It’s really cute, a 3 minute walk to the beach and we are so happy to finally be here!  Let the good times roll!  Here are some pics of the house:

Here is our cute little front yard and our neighborhood, I can hear the waves crashing on the beach!

Here is a pic of our cute kitchen, and yes there is hubby.  When the girls commented on his attire, or lack thereof, he informed us we better get used to it, he wasn’t planning on wearing a shirt all week and we were lucky he was wearing pants.  He then went on to tell us this horrifying tale of what he did when the kids and I went to my parents house.  Apparently, he bought himself steak everyday, grilled it and then sat naked on our couch while he ate it and drank beer.  Who did I marry?  I ask you.

And here are pics of our oldest daughter’s private quarters above the garage and separate from the house

We may never see her again.

And here are pics of our back porch and pool

And here is a pic of the spiral staircase leading to Emmy’s little tower on the third floor.  I won’t climb those stairs, so you’ll have to just imagine what her little bedroom looks like.

And other pics

And our little man-child all settled in

Tomorrow:  We hit the beach!

The cabs were actually clean, driven by Irishmen (although our first drive’s picture looked a bit like a mug shot you’d find in Belfast).  He didn’t drive crazy either, so that was nice.  We arrive at the train station (my mom’s first time using public transportation, look at the pic!).  The train takes us into the heart of Dublin and oh my…I don’t even know how to describe the drunken crazy revelry that greeted us.  I knew after being in Dublin for 5 seconds that Libby and my mom would never make it.  I am pretty certain we were the only sober people in the mass of thousands.  What is scary to me is what some of these people thought they could get away with wearing even before they actually got drunk.  Now, I ask you….why on earth would you ever wear tights without a skirt or shorts?  Seriously, you could see her butt crack.  I shudder to think what you could see from the front.  And for all the ladies wearing shamrock tights…..yeah, those shamrocks weren’t hiding anything, put on clothes!!!!!  Actually, “Butt Crack Anyone” was going to be the title of this blog.  It was like Mardi Gras times 1000.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  I lost count of how many ambulances were called to pick up the passed out, the sick, the drunk and disorderly.  The Garde was in full force, streets were shut down and the Temple Bar area was crammed with people, you couldn’t even move.  There were people parading in their underwear, or dressed as leprechaun’s, it was a sea of green in every form imaginable.  There was drunken singing, dancing, cursing left and right.  People were carrying around liters of booze.  My eyes and ears were in sensory overload.  I was way too sober to enjoy it, and forget about getting into a pub, they were also crammed wall to wall with people.  Even though you are forbidden to smoke in pubs now, people stand literally right outside the doors and light up, so the amount of smoke you ingest trying to obtain entrance is probably the equivalent of one cigarette with all the nasty side effects but none of the buzz!  I kept look at Libby, but her eyes were completely glazed over.  She was clearly whelmed, and the way mom was holding on to her, she looked a bit special needs.  Poor thing.  We did finally find seats in this one pub, but apparently Libby can’t pass for 18 so we were forced to leave.  Damn you Libby!!!!  What can I say about Dublin…it was beautiful.  It reminded me of a much much older New York City or what I would imagine all the small villages we stayed in would look like had they been on steroids.  You could probably spend a week just in Dublin and the surrounding countryside.  It’s impossible to get directions to anywhere in Ireland.  Everything is around the bend, or up there just a bit, or take a slight left and there you are…they neglect to tell you the slight left is 5 kilometers away or requires 5 right turns.  Dublin streets made absolutely no sense, maybe you have to be drunk to get anywhere, but we walked literally in circles.  Streets changed names randomly and picked up somewhere else.  We spent the majority of our time in Dublin, dodging puke, butt crack and getting lost.  Oh well.  Happy St. Paddy’s Day Ireland!

We were pretty much in a coma by the time we made it back to our hotel, hence the reason there was no blog yesterday.  Our cab ride back to the hotel was amusing.  Our driver was a bit of a negative nelly.  Interestingly enough, he used to drive trucks in the states.  He didn’t have any good pubs to suggest to eat, he thought we should have stayed in Bunratty, and his 15-year-old son might not live to see 16.  For some reason though, even when the Irish are negative, it still sounds uplifting because of their accent. We tried two places in downtown Enniskerry, but they were both full with no seats available.  Finally, on our third try, we find a place to collapse.  While sitting here enjoying the rest and refuel, we are forced to enjoy yet more butt crack.  I mean seriously….  The other thing we notice about the Irish, they take their children everywhere.  I mean everywhere.  I will say there is nothing more adorable than a 5-year-old with an Irish accent.  All the children seem to be quite sassy over here too.  I think this proves that my children were meant to be Irish.  After we finish eating and Libby polishes off a sizable chocolate brownie, we head back to the hotel for a good nights sleep, before we head out on our last day in Ireland

We get up and head down for our free full Irish breakfast which basically means we eat toast and cereal.  The coffee over here is really strong, so after dumping almost an entire bottle of creamer into it and 5 tablespoons of sugar, I am ready to tackle the day!  We find out there is actually a mall in Dundrum (a suburb of Dublin), so we head there to finish out our souvenir shopping.  It was the biggest mall I’ve ever seen, and I’m from Texas!  It was complete with a butcher and a grocery story!  It was ginormous!  Libby lit up like a Christmas tree, it was perhaps the most excited I’d seen her on the whole trip.  While my mother was trying on an outfit the shopkeeper starts chatting me up, and I learned all sorts of interesting things about Irish government.  Of course the 6 counties north of Dublin are completely split off from the Republic of Ireland, which unfortunately is part of Great Britain.  Their former PM made more money than the world’s most important man from the world’s most important country, Obama (these are her exact words and I am not paraphrasing).  No wonder Ireland is bankrupt, bankrolling their PM’s to live like kings while the country starves to death.  So honey, when you see my shopping expenses hit the bank, don’t be hasty in your judgment, I do it for the love of Ireland!  I think it counts as a charitable donation actually.  The Irish are very excited that Obama is coming to visit in May and they are hoping for some additional financial support for the US.  History lessons are so much more interesting when told with an accent.  After shopping, we head out to do the other thing Libby gets really excited about…nature hikes.  We stop off at The Ritz Carlton to ask for direction and oh my…I’m wondering why we didn’t stay there!  It was unbelievable.  Absolutely gorgeous hotel.  They are wonderfully helpful and provide me a map of the famous Wicklow trail as well as explicit directions on how to get there.

The trail starts for us at The Powerscourt Waterfall.  I’ve included pictures here because there are no words to describe it.  It is hard to believe that the Irish aren’t more blessed with good fortune, because clearly God has to reside here.  After spending a few minutes climbing the rocks around the waterfall, we hit the trails.  The concierge at the Carlton warned me the paths were not clearly marked, this was a gross understatement and given our track record for getting lost, I am extremely worried we won’t make it off this trail alive, and who would know where to come looking for us or even that we were missing!  I’m not worried about wild animals anymore, since the fiercest animal apparently indigenous to Ireland is the fox, and I’m pretty sure I could take it, but just in case I am armed with a big stick, which comes in handy for climbing.  We are deep in the forest and it’s hard to be scared or worried about getting lost surrounded by such amazing natural wonders.  The trees are huge and covered with moss, there are four-leaf clovers everywhere, a rocky brook with crystal clear water…I feel like I am in a movie, it can’t be real.  We get turned around and at times meet ourselves coming, but we are all having a good time until we start getting worn out and the path we think leads us back to the waterfall in fact leads us to a dead end in the opposite direction of where we want to be.  Well, if I am going to die, at least it’s here I suppose.  We turn around and try to make our way back the way we had come, crossing over the rickety makeshift bridge I wasn’t excited to cross the first time, and now I had to do it again!  Once we were all across, Pam makes a discovery.  She has lost her camera somewhere along our route.  Insert collective groan here.  Her and Libby decide to backtrack to a rock we had stop to rest it, praying it had fallen out there while she was sitting.  It hadn’t.  Libby comes back to the side of the brook that Mom and I are waiting on and informs us that my sister has run back to our dead end point (which was quite far) to see if she dropped it there.  She must have flown because before we know it, she is back with the camera in tow!  Breathe a sigh of relief Tim.  Whew!  I did stop to drink from the brook, and only worried a little about dangerous bacteria, since I am still alive to write this and haven’t been afflicted with the Irish runs, I guess it was okay to drink.  I am too tired to proofread this blog, so forgive my spelling or grammar mistakes.  We head back home today, and I am a little worried about my suitcase making it under 50lbs, so fingers crossed everyone!  I can’t wait to see my girls, my son and my husband today, and I know my sister and mom feel the same way about their respective families.  I plan on watching the Kings Speech on the plane today, so everyone please pray for our safe travel back across the Atlantic.  I hope you have enjoyed reading about our trip nearly as much as we did living it.

Next stop:  HOME!!!!!!

So, now we head to the sheep farm; however, upon arrival we discover it is closed.  Drats.  We head back out to our next destination which is the Lismore.  On the way, we see some sheep with babies running along the fence, so we pull into a smaller road and get out of the car.  These sheep are surrounded by a fence and locked gates, so mom decides to jump the fence.  After my incident with the bar gate, I decide to walk down the road a bit and see if there is a better way to get in.  We get about halfway to what looks to be a gate, when this truck turns down our road.  We try to look all nonchalant because after all mom is stuck in the pasture of someone’s farm, probably trespassing (although there were no signs posted, which was going to be our defense had we been arrested, plus we were going to claim that this fence jumping and sheep tipping is a common custom where we come from in Texas).  I snap pics and the truck passes, then Libby and I take off running behind the truck for the gate we saw.  It didn’t occur to us that chasing after the truck on foot, might look a tad suspicious until the truck slammed to a stop.  We heard yelling, and then all of a sudden a man on a horse emerges!  OMG they’ve sent the calvary after us!!!  Libby yells run (a common refrain with her) and takes off, but where should I run I ask you?!?!??!?!?  So I stand there and wait for him trying to formulate my very good story and hoping he doesn’t see my mother in the pasture in her bright red sweater.  I am actually starting to sweat.  I don’t want to go to the gaol!  He actually just says good morning and keeps going.  Whew!  I look to the car and the little ditcher Libby is hiding behind the car!  She just left me to face the firing squad by myself!!!!  So, now she thinks it is safe so she runs back with my sister in tow, and we head back to the gate.  We stand there for a minute pondering our next plan of attack (the sheep ran from mom, so she jumped back over the brambles fence and was now standing with us) when all of a sudden we hear what sounded like a stampede.

O

M

G

The guy who passed me on horseback brought back friends…on horseback….a bunch of them!!!!  We all stand there stupidly trying to look busy and not guilty as they pass (some of them were quite cute).  We bid them good morning, and smiled and watched as they went around the bend.  All of us breathe another sigh of relief and then my sister and Libby jump the fence.  At last, her cuddling and running with sheep dreams has come true, except they were scared to death of her and kept running, so we risked life and limb for essentially nothing.  As they are walking around trying to corral the sheep in the pasture in order to get closer to them, mom and I think we hear another car so we start yelling for them to hide while we pretend to take pictures of the nice sheep.  The only problem is that there really isn’t a place to hide, so they both quickly run to the gate and vault over only to find that it was a false alarm.  No car.  Mom and I were a little jumpy obviously.  After our sheep adventure, we decide to continue on to Lismore.

We ate lunch in the quaint town of Lismore after visiting the Cathedral and attempting to visit the castle there.  The castle didn’t officially open for the tourist season until tomorrow, but when we got there, a group of people were walking into it so we followed them down the very long lane to the castle doors at which point they turned to us and said “sorry, this is as far as you go” and shut the big castle doors in our faces!  I personally thought it was kinda mean, but whatever.  We even told them we were leaving the area, and wouldn’t be able to come back tomorrow and since they were already there why couldn’t we take a quick peak, but nooooooooo!  So, we moved on to the Cathedral.  After lunch, we head to the Monastery at Mount Monterrey.  One of the priests from my retirement village told me to visit there, so I was excited to see it.

The monastery is home to Cistercian monks.  The contract for the church and the land says that monks may own it only today and tomorrow.  Therefore, they own it forever.  Their day begins at 4 am with prayer, and they continue praying every hour for 7 hours.  They live mostly in silence.  The church does hold mass, and the monks are available to hear confession.  There is a guest house that is open for anyone of any creed to find rest should they need it.  It was peaceful, serene and absolutely beautiful.  Plus, I got to see my first true monk!  The gardens were pretty except the part where we kept getting dive bombed by bees.  We were surrounded by mountains and the view was incredible.  After leaving the monastery, we head towards The Vee.  The road traversing up this mountain is ridiculously small, luckily we don’t meet many cars going the opposite way.  It feels just like it looks in the movies.  We are driving along and all of a sudden these angora goats just appear, roaming free, crossing the road and dotting the hillside.  We pull over, but of course they run from us.  We spend a few minutes taking pictures and doing a little mountain climbing before heading back to the car and continuing on to The Vee.  The drive at this point is just amazing.  The landscape literally changes about every 5 minutes.  We finally make it to The Vee, which is an overlook of the entire valley.  We have pictures because words just can’t express how spectacular the view is from here.  After soaking that in for a few minutes, we continue driving until we see this little brook and Libby decides she wants to stop and do some exploring.  We are walking around and she announces she has to pee.  I tell her to go, there is no one around.  I point to the ground and I say, go right there.  She looks to where I am pointing and says “what is that?”  I am looking around when she says “OMG is that a dead cow?!?!?!?” I finally see what she is point at and omg it is a dead calf, half eaten and rotted!  We both scream and run to the car.  Libby still hasn’t forgiven me for telling her to pee on it.  I truly didn’t see it.  Truly.

We make it back to our haven of Youghal, and after resting a few minutes, we head down to the bar for some drinks.  I decide to go straight for the hard liquor, so I ask for a whiskey sour.  Apparently, they have never heard of a whiskey sour, but the bartender tells me she will find out how to make it.  Before I can tell her it’s no big deal, I can order something else, she has run off in search of help.  She asks one of the other ladies, and she has no clue either, but apparently someone in the back that we can’t see will know how to make it, so they run back there to ask.  Well that person didn’t know either, so they decide to call Mary.  I don’t know who Mary is but apparently she must know because they begin putting together my strange American concoction.  I am a little concerned when they break out the Martini glass.  I can’t really see what she is doing, but she dumps a bunch of stuff in the shaker and pours me a whiskey sour martini.  She gives it to me, but the look on her face does not inspire confidence to try it.  She says “well, there ya go”.  I take one sip of this  cloudy yellow looking concoction and OMG.  The drink actually gave me heartburn, but she told me that while she wouldn’t charge me for it, I had to drink it all because of all the effort they took to try to make it.  My sister asks what they actually put in it.  Are you ready for this?

Jim Beam Whiskey

The juice of half a lemon

and

Vermouth

I did valiantly finish it, but it was rough going and it really did give me heartburn.  Poor woman behind the bar was driven to drink after that fiasco.  Mental note: apparently the Irish only drink their whiskey straight up.

Afterwards, we head to our favorite pub to eat and where I safely stick with rum and coke.  Libby has discovered a new love (sorry Joey), it’s goat cheese.  Then we head back to our rooms to fall into an exhausted sleep.  We must get our beauty rest because tomorrow is St. Paddy’s Day and we are headed to Dublin!