Talk to you Soon

I am officially on my way to Michigan.

No laundry. No dishes. No daily chores.

Just me and my family and a mini-van full of excitement.

We will only be gone for a couple of days but I plan on soaking up every. single. second.

Have a happy and blessed Monday, my friends.

Talk to you soon.

Vacation Recap: Photo Dump

I feel as if I'm clearly not going to get around to recapping my vacation the way that I had planned, so I figured this was the fastest (and easiest) way to fill you guys the rest of the way in without making two or three more posts. Enjoy!

Someone spent a lot of nights just laying around, wore out after a fun-filled day.

The Casements

The Casements

Ponce Inlet Lighthouse

He loved this hat the minute he laid eyes on it.

Flaggler Beach

Saint Augustine Lighthouse

Fort Matanzas

A night at the pier.

My little fish.

Not to happy about having to get out of the pool.

For the first time ever, I saw a sea turtle in it's natural habitat. Then the next day, we see this... so sad.

Vacation Recap: Funny Stories

There should be a sitcom of my life, I swear. Things happen on a daily basis that even the wildest of imaginations could not think up. Put five of us Ovenshire's in a vacation home together for a week and you'll be sure to have some funny stuff happen.

It started with me.

The night that we got to our condo, I had been driving for the majority of two days, hungry, and just ready to be in bed. We were on the 2nd floor and had taken the elevator because we had so many bags with us on this last trip down to the van. My in-laws and Henry were already in the condo relaxing, so when I walked through the front door, it didn't really surprise me to see his mom sitting in a chair reading a book. She reads ALL the time. No biggie.

Only... it wasn't Jeremy's mom. It was 11:00 p.m. and I had just opened someone's door, turned on the light and walked right in. I promptly turned right back around, pushed Jeremy away from the door and just walked away. He followed me, confused and wondering what in the world was going on, so once we were a bit of a distance away, I explained to him that that was not our room and that that woman was not his mother. He of course, just laughed.

In my tired state, I had pushed the '3' on the elevator instead of the '2'. Jeremy couldn't WAIT to tell his parents and we all had a good laugh about it. The craziest part is that I'm fairly certain that this lady had no idea that we had came in and out of her home.

Then it was Jeremy's turn. We had just ate and when I turned a corner and saw this wonderful mess::

 

I had to stop. It was probably 2 acres of junk piled on top of each other. I loved it! We browsed around a while, laughing and talking about how people would talk about us if we were to park one of those crazy chickens outside of our house... 'Oh! Those are the crazy folk in P-Hill with the huge chicken outside of their house!" and we laughed some more. We didn't buy anything because we thought things were priced a little on the high side, so after awhile we decided we had seen enough and packed back into the van.

 

Only... suddenly Jeremy had to go. And he had to go NOW.

 

So we all waited...and waited...and waited. When he finally got back to the van, he had this horrible sad look on his face and we all thought the worst...

 

He climbed back into the passenger seat and gave me a look that would break even the toughest of hearts. "That bad?" I asked him. He just shook his head and then explained to us that there was one port-a-potty, no toilet paper, and that lizards and bugs had made their homes comfortably inside of it with absolutely no fear of any humans.

 

We all lost it. Poor guy! We were just all glad it wasn't us.

 

I saved the best for last. My father-in-law is known to do some stupid and crazy things. Matter of fact, if you look through all of our vacation pictures, we're pretty sure that he changed shirts once...and even then, he went from one bright orange shirt to another. He's not a real personal guy and if you want to be a part of THIS family, you have to learn quickly to loose all ability to be embarrassed. (When Jeremy proposed and we announced it to his parents, his father's only words were 'Good, now you can wait until you get married to have sex.' Oh... thanks dad.)

 

So when he bought this kite at a yard sale on our way down in North Carolina, we all just sort of knowingly hung our heads as he tried to find a place for it in our already jam-packed van. But then when he pulled it out on the beach, it made such a pretty sight... and when Henry when over to his Grandpa and Grandpa so sweetly helped him to fly it, my heart melted...

 

It was really a pretty rare moment and I was so glad to capture it with my camera. But as we're all sitting there, Jeremy keeps yelling to him... keep your hand on it, he won't hold on for forever...

 

Do you think he listened?

Grandpa? Why are you chasing that kite?

 

Nope!

 

The kite went flying across the beach, dragging the heavy plastic reel with it. It went up a flight of stairs, into the pool of one of the hotels along the beach, hit some guy in the head, went up over the roof of the hotel, into traffic and ended up at a gas station across the street where some guy was painting...and not too happy.

 

As we drove off the beach and up the street to find the gas station that he had ended up at, we all laughed so hard that we cried.

 

A Florida Sunrise

I think I'll let this post speak for itself: Henry and seeing the ocean for the first time (that he can remember), the sun rising slowly, and a family joined together in that perfect moment.

Vacation Recap - Getting There

We had such a great time on vacation! It was very much needed and very much appreciated, I feel ready to tackle so many things now. I have so many photos and so much to share with you guys that I'm going to split it up in several posts. 

Because Ormond is quite the drive (14 hours) we decided to leave a day early and split the drive in two.   We ended up in North Carolina for the night on Lake Norman. We found a hotel room, had some dinner at a local place and then crashed for the night.

Shorts!

The next morning we got up and headed to some local places that my husband and father-in-law wanted to see. In case any of you didn't know, my husband is most definitely a motorhead. He doesn't really watch Nascar anymore, but he's really into NHRA stuff and loves talking about anything that has to do with the mechanics of a race vehicle. 

Earnhardt statue in the city of Kannapolis.

Earnhardt memorial.

We also visited  Hendrick Motorsports, which did not interest me at all. Henry did enjoy climbing into the race seat and driving awhile (one of his favorite things). While the boys looked around we headed outdoors to enjoy some much needed sunshine.

This is so much better mom!

Henry and grandma. 

 Henry did not enjoy being in the car as long as we were, but we managed to find ways to entertain him. Playing peek-a-boo with his hat and blankets was probably his favorite. This hat took a beating the last week, he's become obsessed with it and refuses to go anywhere without it on.

Where's Henry?

There he is!

Once in Florida, it's just one hop, skip and jump to where we were going. We didn't arrive in Ormond until later (10 pm) so we just grabbed dinner and then headed to our condo to unpack and get some sleep.

It's tradition for us to stop at the welcome center and grab a picture with the Florida sign. Here's a flashback photo to prove it, with a baby Henry on the way!

Notice my husband's wonderful change in fashion style... he owns about 4 of the same shirts and wears them constantly. Drives me crazy!

I'll post more about our vacation as I go through my photos. I hope you all have a wonderful Monday, mine will be spent unpacking, doing laundry and trying to get back into the swing of things!