Beach time

Like I said the other day, I felt pretty guilty about getting to enjoy the sand, ocean and sunshine while poor Jeff was stuck in the room. But I did it all for Biscuit ... yeah, let's go with that.

It was breezy but not cold. We were wearing sweat suits and were plenty warm enough. Especially once we started running from waves and walking along the sand.

The first morning, Biscuit and I went out and built sand castles. We had a whole village of them. We made up all kinds of stories for the people who lived in our sand neighborhood.

We went back out that afternoon, and the tide had made it up far enough to wash away about half of our village. So we walked and picked up shells and both ended up getting our feet wet.

The second morning, I warned Biscuit ahead of time.

"I'm taking my camera out this morning," I said to Biscuit, "so get ready."

Biscuit just grinned. He knows the drill. I take a gazillion pictures, then I put my camera in a plastic bag to protect it from the sand, then we play some more!

Here are some pictures of Biscuit playing at the beach:

Barefoot in November!

He thinks he can command that wave to stay right where it is.

Too bad this isn't video because he let out some serious squeals.

If there is dirt or rocks or shells, they MUST be thrown.

We cheat by using sand castle molds. There's still skill involved,
though. Biscuit packs the damp sand down as tight as he can.

Then he positions it just where he wants it.

Then he reveals his creation. This was a corner for his soon-to-be castle.

Biscuit has had this little truck on every beach trip he's been on.

He walks like he owns the place!

Our castle ruins.

My foot and Biscuit's foot side by side.

By the time we went in, Biscuit was wet up to his knees.

It's too late to run now!

It's amazing how big the wave looks (above), then just
before it gets to Biscuit, it fizzles to much of nothing (below).

Our castles are completely gone.

Biscuit usually smiles with his mouth closed because he feels weird about a smile with teeth
missing. But something I said tickled him, and I just happened to have the camera ready.

Let's try this again

Jeff turned 50 in early October, and we decided to take him to the beach for a long weekend as his gift.

And then Hurricane Matthew blew through the eastern part of the state with flooding, downed trees and other kinds of damage.

We looked at the calendar to see if we could find another time to go. When we saw that Biscuit had Veteran's Day off from school, we decided to give our trip another chance.

I called our usual hotel, only to find that it was booked up ... in November!

We were honestly starting to wonder if our beach trip was cursed.

And then Jeff got pneumonia.

He hadn't been feeling good, and I told him that his cough was worrying me and nagged him into making a doctor's appointment

Our plan had been to pick up Biscuit as soon as school was out on Thursday. Then we'd drive to the beach and get there in time for dinner.

Then Jeff called and said the doctor was sending him to get a chest x-ray. I got a sinking feeling that our trip was going to be cancelled again.

But by then, I had found another hotel and had made non-refundable reservations. 

I asked Jeff what he wanted to do, and he said he wanted to go no matter what, so we got his prescriptions filled and off we went. I did all the driving, and Jeff slept in the passenger seat.

We made it halfway through the 4 1/2-hour trip, only to get stuck in construction and traffic. It was awful. We were crawling on the interstate. And of course all the drivers around us were getting impatient and honking horns and cutting each other off.

And again, I was thinking, "Should we just go home? Have all these things been signs that we shouldn't go?"

Biscuit was so patient and so good for the whole trip. And despite the fact that our original plan had been to arrive around dinnertime, we got there at 10:45 p.m.

I had called ahead to let the front desk know that we would be checking in late, and the woman I talked to was really nice about it and said whatever time we checked in would be fine.

We finally got there, and I got us checked in. Jeff wasn't allowed to touch the luggage, which he felt bad about. I used my mom voice and said, "If you touch a single one of these bags, I will turn that car around and take us right back home!"

I did let him go out for dinner Friday night and Saturday night. Other than that, he stayed in the room. I felt really bad for him, especially since Biscuit and I spent a ton of time out on the beach playing in the sand.

Poor Jeff. The closest he made it to the ocean was to sit
for a bit on the balcony. Luckily, our room was oceanfront.

At certain times of the year, you can see the sun set on the ocean at that stretch of the beach. So Jeff did get to see a couple of pretty sunsets.

Jeff said he had a nice, relaxing trip, but it would've been a lot better if he hadn't been coughing his head off the whole weekend. His whole body just ached, and I would've given anything to make him feel better.

Thankfully, he's on the mend. He has to have a follow-up x-ray just to make sure, but his coughing is a lot better. He's still constantly exhausted, but the doctor said that would be the case for at least a couple of months.

When I asked Jeff how his birthday trip was, in typical Jeff fashion, he said, "It was good."

Be back soon

We just got back from the beach. Jeff has pneumonia. Biscuit has a bad cold. I'm trying to hold down the fort and get all the laundry and everything back to normal. Work is work. School is busy for Biscuit. And Thanksgiving is next week!

Crazy, crazy, crazy!

Here's a teaser photo, and I'll be back soon.

A splashy party

I was looking for something fun and different for Biscuit's birthday party this year, and a friend at work made a good suggestion.

The Y near us has an indoor heated pool, and they rent it out for parties. So back in the early spring, I talked to Biscuit about it.

"How cool would it be to have a pool party in November?" I asked Biscuit.

"Mom!" Biscuit said, "we'd freeze to death if we had a pool party in November."

"Not if the pool is inside," I told him.

He liked the idea, so I told him that as soon as the stores starting putting out their summer stuff, we'd go ahead and buy plates and napkins and tablecloths and stuff for the goodie bags. He wanted to give everybody water guns and sunglasses in sand buckets that came with a little shovel. So we hit the dollar store and were pretty much done in June.

We looked for cake ideas online, but we didn't see any good "pool" cakes, so we decided to go with an ocean cake. We crushed up vanilla wafers for the sand and used blue icing for the ocean water. Then we added teddy bear crackers lying on fruit leather beach towels under umbrellas. And we put some bears in gummy floats in the water.

Here's what we came up with:

Then we decided on the snacks. We wanted the names to match the ocean themes, so we had Catch of the Day (aka assorted goldfish), cheeseballs (aka beach balls), rafts (aka crackers), sharks teeth (aka cheddar cheese) and tourists (aka the bears that didn't make it onto the beach or in the water).

Biscuit wanted a number candle and some other assorted ones. He suggested that we put all the blue candles in the water and the others on the "beach" like tiki torches.

Biscuit did get a war wound. Once the kids got their goodie buckets, they took out their sunglasses and water guns and started running around pretending to shoot each other. Biscuit stopped, but the kid behind him didn't, so Biscuit got a nice big scratch down the back of his neck. He cried for a little bit, but it didn't take long for him to be over it and go right back to playing.

When I signed up for the party, the aquatics director said the pool would be open to all the members. But all we saw was a couple of other people who came in at different times while the kids were swimming. They almost had the pool to themselves.

All the kids played well together, and the parents all got along well, too. It's always a plus when the parents can enjoy themselves, too.

Biscuit's birthday isn't until tomorrow, but he really enjoyed his weekend celebration.

Backing it up

As you know, I didn't write during this past summer. But I have photos and stories about things that happened during that time. So I asked a friend at work (who also reads the blog) if I should go back and write about the stuff that happened during the summer. Her answer was, "Well, we weren't there to see it, so yes!"

So I guess that's what I'll do.

Here are a few photos from the summer:

Out for a cruise in the Barracuda.

Biscuit earning his keep blowing grass off the driveway. And I must say
that he decided to wear the headphones. He never has like loud noises.

Biscuit made his own lunch for the first time. PB&J and
goldfish. It's nothing fancy, but he got out all the supplies, made
his lunch, then put everything back away. And I watched!

My boss went to a yard sale at her church and found this
Star Wars robe for Biscuit. She said she paid all of 50 cents for it!

Biscuit got new aviator sunglasses,
and he thought he was hot stuff!

After a soccer game, we drove home with the
windows down. And since Biscuit's hair was wet with
sweat, this is the hairstyle he had when we got home.

Jeff brought his father's almost-new glasses home and had the lenses swapped
out for his own prescription. But of course, Biscuit had to try them out first.

Biscuit spent the day at a water park with a friend, then finished
off the afternoon with a sweet treat. His bathing suit is so cute.
It has a T-Rex on a surfboard with a volcano in the background.