We LOVED our beach trip to Cape San Blas, Florida. We hung out on the beach, swam in the pool, read books, watched shows, played board games, went out for lunch and ice cream, checked out a shipwreck on the beach, sat on the porch, went to the state park, and enjoyed relaxing.
For more pictures, click on the “Cape San Blas 2021” page to the right.
I was SO excited to go see Gabe Dixon at the Franklin Theater tonight with my sister, Julie! She loves him as much as I do. We met early for dinner at Tazeki’s (I had never eaten there…fresh and delicious Greek food) and walked around downtown Franklin before the show. Gabe is SUCH a talented musician and singer that you can see it on the faces of the musicians in his band when he’s playing and singing…when he hits a riff here or there that just floors them (and us). I love listening to music and sharing that experience with people I love who love it too…Julie and I were jamming out, dancing in our seats. AND…I got to meet Gabe and get a picture with him!!! I had met him once before when he played piano for Kate York and I sang harmony for her…years and years ago. But I was super pumped to tell him how much I’ve always loved his music…something got into me, and I was even brave enough to sing a line of a song to him that he sang at a benefit for clean water many years back that has always stayed with me…he started singing along with me and said, “You like that song? I liked that one too. I should record it.” Hopefully, he will.
Xander’s 5th Grade Graduation Ceremony was tonight! It was a big deal for this momma…it was already a big deal because my Xan-Man is going to be a middle schooler next year…but even bigger because of the year we’ve all come through and because we missed Jonas’ 5th Grade Graduation Ceremony last year due to COVID. It was definitely one of those head-shaking, tear-jerking moments for me, realizing once again just how fast time passes.
I totally teared up when Xander came processing into the gym, when the kids sang “When You Believe” and “Hall of Fame”, and when Principal Fuller asked us to give the kids a round of applause for making it through this challenging year. Xander received the Perfect Attendance Award and the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence! Congratulations, Xander!!!
I was SO excited to get to go with Tree, one of my precious sisters-in-law, to Colorado for some rest and relaxation this weekend/week!!! What a blessing!!!
We stayed in the sweetest guest house, ate dinner at one of the most delicious restaurants I’ve been to in a long time (The Roost), went for a drive along the Peak to Peak Parkway, picnicked at a reservoir, hiked in the snow (only for a half of a mile because every few steps one of our legs would sink into the snow up to our knees), walked around a beautiful lake, visited an old Catholic church (Chapel on the Rock) and camp (Camp Saint Malo), grilled out, did yoga, read books (I finished The Unwanteds: Island of Shipwrecks and almost finished Running with the Kenyans), went for walks/runs, went to mass, ate brunch (which we ended up boxing up and taking home because of a cold downpour), watched a movie, went shopping, visited used bookstores, ate healthy food, and caught up on each other’s lives.
Here are a few pictures of our time together in Longmont, Colorado (just outside of Boulder).
We picked the boys up early from school today and took them out on the lake to do some magnet fishing…a little celebration for making it through the first week of TCAP testing. We had fun just riding around on the lake, and the boys caught a grill grate, some electrical wire, and a hoop earring to boot. HaHa!
We went to Red River Gorge, Kentucky for the latter half of Spring Break. We stayed in a log cabin in the woods (loved the view and the hot tub on the deck), took a sky lift up to a natural bridge (I was scared out of my mind, but all of the boys…including Tom…loved it), hiked three miles (I’m hoping for more family hikes in the future…however, Roman lost his mind about a 1.5 miles in), and spent time just relaxing (we watched the first episode of the Mandalorian and Raya and the Last Dragon with the boys). It was really nice…I’m so grateful we were able to get away.
For more pictures, click on the “Spring Break 2021” page on the right.
We had the most snow we’ve had in years here this week!!! The boys were out of school for almost a week and a half. Craziness. We had fun, though…relaxing, sledding, throwing snow balls, building snowmen, taking walks in the snow, and warming up by the fire.
Roman has been struggling emotionally these days…I think the pandemic is really getting to him…like it is all of us. So, his daddy picked him up early from school this afternoon and took him out on the lake to ride around and do some exploring. I think it was just what the doctor ordered.
Running, especially in the winter, keeps me sane. I love time spent alone, outdoors, and listening to music. Since there won’t be any in-person races for a while, I picked up some gear from Gone For a Run for a virtual half-marathon that I can train for and run on my own time. The theme I chose is “I Run to Burn Off the Crazy”. Funny but true.
On Election Day, Tom took the boys and I and Brad and Archer (a great father/son duo from our neighborhood) out on a boat ride on Percy Priest Lake. It was so nice just to get away from it all, be on the water, feel the wind, hang out, laugh, and explore some islands with the boys.
We had one of the best Halloweens we’ve ever had this year. I’m not sure why…maybe it was because the weather was perfect (just chilly enough to be festive), because the kids are getting older which made things a little bit easier, or because we were all so thankful just to be able to get out and have some normal kind of neighborhood community fun. It also went a lot quicker/took a lot less energy because most everyone laid their candy out on a table in the driveway for the kids to pick and choose from. Tom was an old man, I was a hippie, Jonas was a light up stickman, Xander was Pikachu, and Roman was Harry Potter.
The boys and I drove out to Greenbriar, TN this afternoon to try Shuckle’s Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch. We spent three hours there, and the boys STILL weren’t ready to go home.
It started out a little rough, honestly, because Xander was in a negative head space about everything (“these go karts don’t work”…”this is boring”…”that slide is dumb”…”this is so easy to climb”), and I was seriously doubting my choice of packing up lunches, driving an hour, and paying the price of admission, all for a whining/complaining fest that we could have had at home.
BUT, once he saw the corn maze, he took off and was having a blast with his brothers, sprinting through the stalks from one side to the other and playing hide and seek. And that was the beginning of a very fun day.
The rest of the afternoon was filled with: racing through a rope maze, trying to lasso a (pretend) calf, playing on the seesaws (love that old fashioned fun), climbing on the spider web, decorating cookies (with choose your own cookie, icing color, and toppings), playing pumpkin skeeball and basketball, racing ducks (with water pumps and half PVC pipe slides), conquering a right turn only maze, and jumping on a gigantic “corn popper” pillow. We used lots of hand sanitizer, wore our masks, played a lot, and left tired and happy.
We’re so grateful to be a part of the Nashville Boat Club. It has brought so much fun into our lives (especially this year with COVID-19). We took a wakeboard boat out on Percy Priest Lake this afternoon. Tom wake surfed, the boys and I tubed, Jonas wakeboarded, and Xander and Roman kneeboarded.
The boys and I drove out to Jackson Falls this morning, which is just off of the Natchez Trace.
The beginning of the trip was GREAT…the boys were reading on their tablets and I was jamming out to some new Ruston Kelly tunes and enjoying the open road. Then, we hit probably a 10 mile stretch of curvy country roads. About 5 miles in, Jonas started asking to roll the window down and looking pale, and Roman out of nowhere said, “Mom, I don’t feel so good” and then vomited in the back seat. Luckily, there was a place for us to pull over. So, I let them kind of get their bearings while I cleaned up. I made the executive decision to move Roman to Jonas’ seat and Jonas to the passenger seat, put on a movie that Roman could focus on, gave both of them a salty snack to eat, put the air on full blast, rolled down all the windows, and forged ahead through the last 5 mile section of wind-y-ness. It was definitely one of those trapped feelings, probably for all of us. I am the QUEEN of motion sickness, so I totally understand the hell. The only reason I wasn’t feeling that sick was because I was driving.
After making a wrong turn and heading down the Natchez Trace the wrong way, we finally made it. The walk down to the waterfall was not that challenging…it was paved with some stairs and a railing. I’m not sure if it’s always like this, but the waterfall was just barely trickling into a pool that was a few inches deep. So, we ended up climbing up a bit to the “natural waterslide”, and the boys spent the rest of the time there. At that point, I was wishing Tom was with me because they all flipped into daredevil mode, and I’m more anxious/nervous about all of that than Tom is. He would’ve been right in there with them. I was just standing there saying, “Don’t run!”, “Wait your turn!”, “Don’t stand up and try to walk down!”, “Sit down!”, etc. Xander was giving me the big (what I’m assuming is the beginnings of) preteen, “Moooooooom!” which he had to be pulled to the side a few times for…the attitude. He was pretty much just sprinting up the slick rocks and sliding back down, which scared me half to death. And Roman had to sit out a few times as well for being a sassy pants to other kids and to me. Meanwhile, Xander and Roman were alternately begging to go home, saying, “This is boring!”. I mean, seriously. Really?!? I was SO done. Jonas wanted to stay longer to make the good times outweigh the bad (i.e. more time having fun on the natural waterslide than riding in the backseat of a minivan on curvy country roads). But, alas, we had to go with the majority, as I could sense major meltdowns coming on. Help us all.
The natural waterslide was really so cool, though…I’m thankful they got to experience that.
Roman had his First Communion tonight in a beautiful, socially distant ceremony at church.
I ran 6 miles this morning, and that’s it for my running this week…I’m trying to keep it right at 15 miles a week, a good and maintainable jumping off point in case I want to start training for another half or full marathon in the fall/winter.
Then, Xander, Roman, and I hit up the pool, while Tom and Jonas took advantage of the yellow ocean flag (medium hazard) to swim out to the sand bar and dodge some waves. After lunch, I drove out to Port St. Joe to grab a few things from the grocery store for the trip home and to pick up my book from the post office. I’ve read two books so far this week, and this will be my third…The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (A Hunger Games Novel) by Suzanne Collins. Whee!!! We all took one last dip in the pool before dinner, headed out for one last ice cream cone, and hung out on the beach one last time.
This trip has been such a blessing…Jonas even told Tom, “Dad, I really needed this vacation. I’ve been so stressed.”
Bless his heart…us too. I’m so grateful that we had this time together to relax, restore, and renew.
This morning we went to Happy Ours Kayak and Bike Outpost to do some kayaking and snorkeling in the bay. The boys loved it in the past, but today they were CRABBY. Jonas and Xander both helped paddle and took to it pretty well, which was great…they love to race. But, when it came to snorkeling, none of the boys were into it for some reason and preferred to sit on the boat and whine, which just sort of put a damper on things because they were pouting and asking to go home. I just ignored them and enjoyed snorkeling, but Tom ended up having a Come to Jesus with them. I think it helped a little, as they all ended up getting in for a little bit and checking things out. We saw horseshoe crab shells, scallops, a starfish, several schools of little fish, and lots of interesting coral. After lunch and quiet time, we went out for some ice cream at Cape Coffee and Ice Cream (a small local ice cream shop, where if you don’t time it right…will have you waiting in a line wrapped around the parking lot). So yummy! We swam in the pool until dinner time and then headed down to the beach at sunset for a game of football and one more round of pictures (we needed to get a good one of the whole family).
I went for a 5 mile run this morning. It worked so much better to do a few of the miles in the state park, as it’s shaded a little bit by palm trees…AND I even saw three deer! (I had no idea there were deer in Florida.) Then, Xander and Roman and I hung out the pool, while Tom took Jonas down to the beach. After lunch and quiet time, we went back for another round of the pool and the beach. We relaxed after dinner and got ready for pictures. We ended up taking pictures on the beach ourselves, which was no easy feat given the varying lighting at the different stages of sunset and the varying moods of our boys. But, we did it!!! And I think they turned out really well…
Today was a rainy day. So, we had a leisurely morning and drove out to Port St. Joe for lunch at Sisters. We ate there last year and loved it…the boys were begging to go back. It’s owned by several southern women who call you “honey” and “darlin'”, serve the best home cooked meals and home baked cakes/pies (that you get a slice of for free with your meal!), and make you feel right at home. We stopped at a few souvenir shops on the way back, and then hit up the beach and the pool for the rest of the afternoon. After dinner, the boys cozed up and watched a show while Tom and I took a quick walk on the beach. We even saw a fisherman reel in a huge stingray…Tom helped get him back in the water! We couldn’t wait to tell the boys about it when we got home (especially Xander because he’s such a lover of marine life). Then, Tom rounded them up for an impromptu pool competition (I love his ability to create fun)…he was the judge and I was the audience. The boys competed for Best Jump, Most Creative Underwater Movement, and Most Skilled Swimming Stroke. There are always a few come aparts because our boys are SO competitive, but it was still fun to watch/do.
We are so grateful to be back at the beach in Cape San Blas, FL! We’re staying at the same place we stayed last year, which we love because it’s quiet and close to the pool and the beach. When we arrived yesterday, it was raining. So, it was the perfect time to unpack and unwind after a long drive.
Today, we hit the beach in the morning for some metal detecting, sand castle building, and wave dodging on the shore. Then, we spent some time at the pool (the boys had fun rescuing little frogs!) before heading back in for lunch and quiet time. In the afternoon, Roman and I hung out at the pool while Tom took Jonas and Xander down to the beach. Afterwards, we got cleaned up and went out to dinner in Port St. Joe at Pepper’s, a Mexican restaurant that was packed (which was a little crazy for me, honestly…we’ve definitely not been used to being surrounded by that many people in more than three months). Roman did not make it long, which I was actually grateful for, because it was loud with music and conversations and I was feeling done too. He started covering his ears right after he finished his meal, and I knew the sensory meltdown was coming. Thankfully, he was able to be a big guy and use his words to say, “Mom, can we get out of here? The sound is driving me crazy!” instead of flipping into full meltdown mode. I was so proud of him! We walked down the street and window shopped (Jonas and Xander ended up joining us too) until Tom was able to box up the leftovers and pay the bill. Then, Tom walked with the boys down the street and to the ocean to hang out, while I did the grocery shopping. When we got back home, Tom and I put a movie on for the boys and took a short but wonderful sunset walk on the beach.
