Functionally ReTodded

Yesterday was supposed to be a relatively quiet day. It really wasn’t.

We hit the pool around 10am like usual, and hung out for a couple of hours until it was time for 2Doh’s nap.

Backing up a bit, I realized in the morning that I couldn’t find my ring. The wife got me a family crest ring years ago that means a lot to me. On Monday it nearly fell off in the ocean, so I decided to take it off and put it “someplace safe.” Our room has a safe in it, and that would have been the logical place, but alas, I’m a fucktard and chose a spot on an end table behind a book. Go figure.

Anyway, yesterday morning I couldn’t find the ring. And it started to eat at me. A lot. We looked pretty thoroughly and it got to the point that I was calling the places we went on Tuesday even though I knew I hadn’t worn it that afternoon.

At around 11am or so, the wife finally suggested we return and do a hard-target search for said item. I thought that sounded like a good idea.

We proceeded to toss the room like DEA agents, however we were having no luck. Just when we were about to give up and I was about to have a fit, the wife opened the Talking Dora House in the den and heard a “CLANG!” sound. It was my ring. Now tell me how it got in the Dora house.

Regardless of how, a certain disaster was averted. Not that it can’t be replaced, but the disaster would have been my ruining the rest of the vacation fuming about it.

GBD headed back to the pool for a while with everyone while I stayed with the napping 2Doh. Everyone came back around 2:30pm and we started planning our afternoon, which was to include a trip to the mall for a white buttondown shirt for professional photos to be taken yesterday evening, dinner somewhere and finally said photo session.

We got behind and had to rush, but got some fine shirts at the Mall and then headed for dinner at a place called Steamers over in Coligny Square. I was looking for casual atmosphere and big portions and seafood. I got all three there.

I ordered the garlic butter mussels for an appetizer. I shared three.

Then I proceeded to order a meal that included:

a dozen mussels
a dozen steamed oysters
a dozen steamed clams
a dozen shrimp
a dozen crawfish
blackened lobster tail
about a cup of melted butter
and steel bucket for my carcass trash.

I had never eaten clams or steamed oysters, but I did then. they rocked. I skipped the crawfish. Everything else was devoured.

Yummmmmy.

Then it was home to change and get the girls dressed and rush to Barony in Port Royal for the pictures. We won’t see them all until we view the contact sheet today, but the ones I saw were great. Not of us, but the girls did amazingly well and looked just great in their little linen dresses. I can’t wait to get some ordered.

Then it was home to watch the series finale of LOST.

Which reminds me, don’t start watching a season finale with two people who haven’t watched an episode of the show. The two hours was filled with “Who’s that?” and “What did he just do?” and “Where did they get that from?” and other such questions.

Oh, and it finished with “They better not leave me hanging like this!!”

Um, Bill…it’s a season finale. You’re gonna get left hanging on those. LOL

Today, Nana and Mr. Bill have to go home and it’s too bad. They’ve been great and ridiculously helpful and it’s been a wonderful vacation with them. I look forward to doing this again next year and every year after that.

Next stop: a trip to the top of the lighthouse, the pool, the beach, some crafty thing for 1Doh and then whatever the afternoon brings us.

Hopefully there’ll be many more photos today.

Stay tuned…

Yesterday started off innocently enough. Our only real plan was to hit the beach at Sea Pines with CampCashion and Company for a couple of hours, then home for rest and a return to the Harbor Town area for a little walking around looking at the enormous yachts and a casual dinner.

After our usual breakfast of bagels in some form or another, we hit the Harris Teeter for various perishable and non-perishable goods including some impulse buys like a huge can of whipped cream, ice cream and some Dora vitamins. I figured doing that at 7:45am would leave us plenty of time to get to the beach when we wanted.

Boy was I wrong.

Apparently, if the family gets dressed and heads to the grocery store at 7:45am, the earliest they can actually get to the beach is about 11:30am. I know we’re on vacation and have no schedule to speak of, but that infuriated me for some reason.

By the way, I got over my crankiness by starting drinking at 11:31am.

The CampCashion contingent were well organized and fully engulfed in fun when we hit the beach. Lauren (who I am renaming 1Doh now) had a plethora of kids to play with that were armed with every imaginable beach toy. What was supposed to be a 60 to 90 minute visit turned into a nearly five hour day at Sea Pines.

But the best part of the day (for everyone else anyway) occurred after noon as the tide started to come in.

We had multiple viewings of many dolphins (and possibly an entire pod) including at least one very young dolphin. And I’m not talking about “Hey, I think I see a speck on the horizon that could be a dolphin or maybe it’s a container ship.” I’m talking about “Hey, is that a dolphin right there 25 yards from shore?”

Truly amazing. After the 55 dollar per person dolphin viewing tour boat left, it seemed that the dolphins were taunting the recently departed tourists by giving us an extended free dolphin viewing. It was awesome.

Then we spent almost an hour watching schools of stingrays swim by as close as ten feet from shore.

The kids also got to play with several hermit crabs that they found just wandering around in six inches of water, and then they got a jolt when they saw a blue crab that was about eight inches across scurrying out from his little hidey hole in a foot of water right in the middle of where we were all walking.

But back to my over-consumption. We came back and got showered up and headed back to Sea Pines to check out Harbor Town and the surrounding fun. They have a HUGE playground, some cool shops and outdoor restaurants, the big light house and many enormous yachts. After playground time, the wife, kids and grandparents hit the boardwalk, I parked my wobbly ass in front of the accoustic guitar guy and very close to the outdoor bar that apparently had no policy about selling two beers at a time to an obviously hammered customer. (In case you are confused, I’m talking about me).

We returned home at a reasonable hour, although in retrospect a “reasonable” time to return home would have been about 11:20am.

We took another in-room hot pool and upon exiting, I kicked 1Doh in the neck. She forgave me, and when I went into her room at around 8:15pm to apologize to her again, we both apparently fell asleep simultaneously in the grandparent’s room.

The wife rousted me about 15 minutes later and hustled me off to bed.

No wonder I feel great today. I slept for about 11 hours straight.

Vacation rules.

urchins both slept great last night, and I decided to forego working out in favor of sleeping until 7:30am. ODO (one dot oh) slept until nearly 8:30 this morning which is astounding considering where we are and what’s just outside of our door.

Last night we went to The Salty Dog and met CampCashion and family for cocktails. Then we managed to call a couple of friends so they could see us on the Salty Dog Webcam, including showing my boobies to one friend outside of Boston. Here are a couple of shots from said webcam courtesy of Ethel:

photo one

photo two

I love being drunk on vacation.

Anyway, we had a couple of pops on the deck and then went in for dinner which was good, but my yellowfin tuna was WAY overdone, and that always irritates me for $21.95 a plate.

We came home and watched some sportscenter, relaxed, and hit the hay about 10:30, but not before another VERY relaxing jacuzzi soak. Man, I gotta get me one of them at Casa de TMLSB.

Today we got the kids up and out about 9:15 or so and hit the indoor pool since the outdoor ones are still too cold in the morning. ODO ran out of gas around 10:30am so we came home and got lunch and showered and ready for a trip to Tangers for shopping.

Shit do I love vacations.

More familial boredom to come!!