Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Come What May and Love It (Our 2013 Spring Break Trip)



Last year, we took a magical trip to the beach for Spring Break. It was heaven in all sorts of ways: lovely weather, turquoise water, warm white sand, and hours and hours of walking along the nearly-deserted shore, collecting shells on the beach, and playing in the waves...


One day, which happened to be my birthday, we even took a sunset dolphin cruise:


We loved every minute of playing together as a family:


Part of what made our trip so magical was its rarity. Since we moved here 8 years ago, Tim has always had business-related travel that he has been required to take during Spring Break. For some reason, the conference he normally had in March shifted just enough last year to enable us to take that wonderful vacation. We were grateful.

Hoping for more magical family time, we chose to head to the beach once again this year. Not wanting to compete with The Fabulous Spring Break Trip of 2012, we decided that instead of returning to Navarre Beach in Florida, we would head to LA...or the Gulf Shores, in Lower Alabama, to be exact. Soon after making our plans, we realized Tim's conference was scheduled for the exact dates we had planned to go on our trip. (That should have been a sign. We ignored it.) We decided to leave earlier, on Friday, and spend at least several days together before he had to fly to NYC on Tuesday; the rest of us would finish out the week and drive home on our own. This plan left much to be desired (namely, Tim around for the whole time!), but we rented a condo and looked forward to our trip.

We pulled into Gulf Shores at 2 AM Saturday morning and upon entering our condo, we immediately made some less-than-thrilling discoveries:
  • A large, dead cockroach right by the front door (which was later followed up by an even larger, live cockroach)
  • A swimming pool completely empty of water
  • 1 moth-eaten blanket in a condo advertised to sleep 6
  • No linens whatsoever for the hide-a-bed 
  • A dirty bathroom and dingy, very old bedspreads (not thick enough to qualify as blankets)
The next day we made additional discoveries:
  • The chair Tristan slept on due to the lack of linens mentioned above must have had other guests as he had numerous bites
  • A dishwasher that wasn't bolted in, so all the dishes came falling out unless we employed great tactical strategies for holding it in place while loading it
  • The weather was slated to be cold (and even rainy one day) all week, and we found ourselves collecting shells this year in 40-degree temps instead of the balmy, warm weather of last year
  • Spring-breakers en masse, who staggered around drunkenly while littering the beach with beer cans and the pool area with shattered beer bottles (as discovered by Caden when he cut his foot)
What to do? With Joseph B. Wirthlin's timeless advice resounding in my heart, I knew all we could do was to "Come What May and Love It"! I especially love this tidbit: 

"The next time you’re tempted to groan, you might try to laugh instead. It will extend your life and make the lives of all those around you more enjoyable."


The condo really was so disgusting in some ways that I have to confess to some groaning, but there was a lot of laughing too. It was also so cold that we couldn't spend much time on the beach, but we could do plenty of other things:

Touring the very cool Fort Morgan, famous for the
Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War.  

Visiting the extraordinarily fabulous home where our friends,
the Angerbauers, were staying. Notice I am the only one dressed
appropriately for the weather!

Enjoying lunch at Lambert's, the "Home of the Throwed Rolls,"
Caden's favorite part of our trip.

Attempting to go to Alligator Alley.
(The downpour started right as we got out of the car!)
Second try: Alligator Alley!

"This feels just like my purse!"
Huddling together for warmth after shell-collecting in the cold.

The Pensacola Lighthouse.
Happily for the boys, the most haunted lighthouse in America.

Atop the Pensacola lighthouse.

Celebrating weather in the 60's on the last day of our trip!

Enjoying sunset on our final night in Gulf Shores. 

Come what may and love it! Try it; you'll like it!!  




Early March in Texas

First, there was this:


And then, there was this:


And this too:


So naturally, that meant this: 


We love Spring! (Our Spring Break trip will be covered in my next post...)