Vacation Musings

Well, we’re back from our vacation and are just about fully integrated into real life.  Boo.

It was a very restful week.  In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I felt so much peace and so little stress.  It was almost weird.

Funny little things happened…I wasn’t allergic to my wedding rings and I didn’t have the crazy patches of dry skin on my lower lip.  My blood pressure was even low.

Looks like I have a high sensitivity to stress…

At first I thought it was just the climate difference or something, but we came home on Saturday and I was still fine all the way through Sunday.

By Monday afternoon my blood pressure was up a bit and I was back to my addictive chapstick habit.  Looks like retirement is coming at a good time :)

We had less than perfect weather on our trip, but the ocean front condo, quality family time and salty ocean breeze made up for the rain and clouds.

Falling asleep to the sounds of the ocean and waking up to the voice of my sweet little girl peering over the edge of her pack-n-play calling for me were wonderful bookends to each day.

Spending time with Mimi and Poppa and our Rhode Island family was also great.  Grace was in hog heaven following her seven year old cousin Adeline around all day long.  Even almost ten year old William enjoyed Grace’s usual antics.

Because we stayed right on the ocean, I didn’t have good cell reception which was the perfect excuse to tuck my phone away and enjoy real life.  It’s a shame how much time can be wasted on technology while our real lives are passing us by.

Not looking at my phone all week had a profound effect on me.  It made me want to totally unplug.

As in deactivate my Facebook account, let my Twitter feed die off, and maybe just hold onto my blog but mostly as a daily diary of sorts for my children to look back on some day.

I can’t really explain my huge shift in perspective.  I mean I’m a self proclaimed social media junkie!  I love being “in the know” and find it hard to stay away from the updates available everywhere even though they often irritate me.

I mean I have 345 friends on Facebook (which is low in comparison to most people) but of those 345 people I really only keep up with a handful on a regular basis.  The rest tend to be people I barely know anymore or others whose statuses either don’t matter to me or totally annoy me.

Not the best way to spend my time, right?

The bummer is that with the way the world has changed, sometimes technology can be a great way to keep in touch with people or stay connected.  So I’d hate to throw the baby out with the bath water.  I guess for now I don’t have to make any sweeping decisions.  I can just leave my phone on the counter and live my real life.

Enough of all of that rambling though, here are some pictures from our wonderful week:

Starting the trip off asleep!

View from our condo.  Heaven!

Porch overlooking the ocean

Beachy living room

Beachy dining room

Typical toddler photo

Cousins at the famous “Lee’s Inlet Kitchen”

Me so crispy!

Happy to eat some hushpuppies!

So sweet :)

Mullet Hut…LOL!

Looking a little scattered!

Periwinkles – such pretty little shells that are alive and bury themselves deep into the sand when they wash up on shore.

Andy trying to coax Grace into playing in the sand.  She thinks it’s YUCKY!

Notice the clean, sand-free hands

Love the South Carolina beach :)

When can we go?? The sand is YUCKY!

Judging by her face in this one, I think she must have sand somewhere on her body!

Reading with Poppa

Handsome hubby :)

I LOVE this Piggly Wiggly!

Family dinner

Again with not loving the beach

Skipping with Adeline :)

Waiting for dinner on family date night

Heading home but not without one last shot of our home for the week

Ending the trip asleep

Our rental car which Grace kept calling “Tee Tee’s” because my sister’s car is the same color!