Ari VS. Family "Vacation"

My Mom tells me I now have to look at "vacations" differently. There more like "family outings". Vacation implies there was some sort of relaxation and rejuvenation going on; with kids this may no longer be the case. The first time my parents brought all 6 of us kids to Carlsbad in the 80's four of us sunburned our eyes so bad we couldn't leave the tent for several days. Talk about a miserable vacation...but we keep coming back (although after the whole eye sunburned thing we took a 5 year beach hiatus).

I drove my own car to CA in the event that Ari was sick AND teething AND driving everyone insane we could escape. If my car had not been in the shop we would have only lasted on this "vacation" two days. Ari got a cold that turned into a really bad cough. I had enough cough medication to last one day and couldn't get a hold of a doctor to prescribe more (the meds miraculously lasted three days, just long enough for the big gaging coughing fits to subside). Amidst this Ari began to work on molars; this brought with it a constant stream of wining, fits, tantrums and acid poo. You might say to yourself "at least her family was there to help her". Well...it wasn't for their lack of trying, but 85% of the time Ari wouldn't go 5 inches from me without freaking; if I was not in his line of site there would be a meltdown. This combined with many small things like Libby puking in Ari's car seat, my bed deflating, and everyone in camp catching Ari's cold made for a "vacation" to remember.

The silver lining in all this was that due to the lack of night sleeping Ari was taking pretty long naps; unfortunately he took long naps while everyone was at the beach. By the time he woke up everyone was usually done sitting on the beach thus the majority of prime beach time was spent like this:

The biggest disappointment's were not being able to meet up with Suz and Kristen, and my family not getting to see just how delightful Ari really can be. The day we left (the day after I got my car back) Ari woke up from his nap and screamed for his car seat...so that worked out well. I put him in the car and we drove to St.G where he is doing much better. I think the combination of Joe being gone, being in a new place, being surrounded by people, molars, butt rash and being sick was a little too much to take; for us all. It's a good thing my family had a sense of humor about the whole thing, had they not I think they would have killed us and threw us in the ocean.

I never got in the water (Ari would not let me) and we spent a total of about 4 hours at the beach the whole week. Here are a few photos from those happier times including the highlight for Ari; the tractor in the Costco parking lot: