Memorial Day Weekend at Bethany Beach pt. 2

Sorry for the abrupt ending of my last post…you’ll see why I was so tired and crabby by the end of this post!  It’s morning now, though, the sun is shining, and WAAAAAH!  There are only 4 1/2 more days of school!

Let’s think about happy things, shall we?

Random Beach Photos that make me very happy:

Well, now that’s just weird. Who would take a picture of someone building a sandcastle and only frame the forearm?

 

Our original plan was to head onto the beach and then the boardwalk before heading home on on our last day, Memorial Day, but that morning, Jack woke up warm and sad and lethargic.  Everyone went for a short while to the beach, while Jack and I stayed back, and then we ended up skipping the boardwalk entirely and loaded up the van to head home early.  Maddie stayed to go home with the Keck’s, a choice she’ll treasure forever and ever.

Let me interrupt this story to show you some Before and After photos:

On the Way to the Beach:                                                                                   On the Way Home From the Beach:

The photo on the right was taken minutes before Jack began projectile vomiting.  As soon as he started spewing forth, I unbuckled my seatbelt and jumped between the seats to head back to him and he sprayed vomit in my hair.  By the time I made it back there, his stuffed animals were covered in puke, as were his pj’s, his booster seat, the back of the driver’s seat, and the floor.  I dumped the cooler which was on the floor and gave it to him to throw up into, not that it mattered much by that point. 

He was so sad.  When he realized the shape his stuffed animals were in and saw the carnage around him, he cried and cried and cried.  Poor little fella.  Also.  Did I mention I had vomit in my hair?

I cleaned everything up the best I could using baby wipes and a lone bottle of water.  Traffic was creeping along at that point which made it pretty easy for me to move around the car and get towels etc., clean Jack up, and change Jack’s pukey jammies into clean clothes.  Then we sat back and endured the final 5 or so hours in the slightly smelly, germ-ridden car until we made it home.

Jack’s temp ended up being almost 103 degrees, and he missed two precious, remaining days of school.  The first day he was home he also developed strep throat, and now, thanks to some miraculous antibiotics, he’s feeling much better.

Jack in happier times:

Next up….Bethany Beach Pt. 3:  Instagram at the Beach.  And that’s the last one, I promise!

Memorial Day at Bethany Beach, pt. 1

Last weekend our friends the Keck’s invited us and another family to join them at their beach house.  We were thrilled to say the least!  The Keck’s are truly the perfect hosts, laid back, yet willing to do anything you ask of them, always smiling and accommodating, and kind and gracious. 

Because it was Memorial Day weekend, the usual 4 hour trip to Bethany Beach took closer to 5 1/2 hours.  We watched three movies, and ate Twizzlers and stopped at Subway, and also it may have helped the ride a little that we were excited about our vacation and that Maddie rode to the beach with the Keck’s (less chance for arguing among the natives).   Dave and I had a little shouting match at one point (which we normally tend to not do in front of the kids) because it was my turn to drive and

a) he kept giving me “helpful” driving advice

b)  he told me to get into the left lane to turn left, and then he realized we were really supposed to go straight so suggested I ease myself, in the busy traffic, back into the center lane, the idea of which freaked me out as it meant I’d hold up the people who were behind me who wanted to turn left and would make the people in the lane I wanted to get into mad, so I just wanted to turn left, make a u-turn in a parking lot and get back onto the correct lane, but Mr. BossyPants would have none of that, oh no, and he badgered me until I got into the center lane, and it all turned out okay, but as previously mentioned, tempers were flaring and words were flying and drivers were freaking out and shortly after that Dave pulled his cap down over his face and pretended to take a nap.  And all was right with the world.

When we got to the beach house, we both enjoyed nice big grown-up drinks.

The Keck’s have a canal right behind their house, so we always enjoy kayaking and crabbing when we’re there. 

At one point, the dads took Jack and Katie S. (by the way, we had 10 children among us, and we must all like the same names, because we had two Katies, two Maddies, and two Ellies!  Also a Claire, Abbie, Jack and Ben.  It got a little confusing at times!) out on the kayaks to the bay.  They came home with a nice collection of crabs which we boiled up and ate with our dinner!

The crab on the left is silently cursing Jack.  The crab on the right is pinching Dave and trying to escape! 

The Keck’s house is a very short walk to the beach.  Normally, when we head to the beach every summer with Dave’s family, we lounge around in the sun reading all day, but with ten kids and 5 active adults (I am not including myself in that count) there was a lot of activity on the beach.  Paddleball:

Football:

Baseball:

And lots of sand castles, including an awesome Shell Mosaic Castle and several Drippy Castles:

And for now, I’m going to call it a night as I’m feeling tired and crabby.  Enjoy this bonus picture of the kids, and I’ll see you back here on Thursday for Pt. 2.

Ben, Katie K., Maddie S., Katie S., Ellie K., Abbie, Jack, Claire, Maddie W., and Ellie S.

Relay For Life

A few weekends ago, I told you about the Cookie Ice Cream Sandwich Sale Maddie and her friend Kelsey held to raise money for her Relay for Life team.  They baked over 200 cookies themselves on a Saturday afternoon, and then they sold them as ice cream sandwiches to friends and neighbors the following day.

They made over $150 all of which was donated to their school team, Paws for a Cause, which was further donated to Relay for Life.  Last weekend was Relay for Life which is a 24 hour walk with the goal of raising money for cancer research.  The following 7 photos were borrowed from Ann Holzman, the advisor to the club:

Someone from each and every team must be walking on the track at all times the entire 24 hours.  With 64 members, I don’t think our team had any trouble keeping the track covered!

There were also fun activities all night and day like cake walks and karaoke:

and Zumba:

In the evening, luminarias are lit memorializing friends and loved ones who have succumbed to cancer.  The track is lined with them, and the word “Cure” is spelled out on the bleachers.  There is also a Survivor Lap and a ceremony which brought on tears from many participants.

So many bags.  Too many lives lost to cancer.

Some members of the team arrived after the eighth grade dance, and did a few laps in their dresses!

Maddie told me it got really cold over night, with temps down in the forties.  She was also just starting a head cold, and between the stuffed-up head, the bumpy ground, and the cold temps, she had a hard time sleeping.  She was up at 5 a.m. for some early morning laps.

Ben and I arrived about 3 hours before the end of the Relay, intending to walk the final hours with Maddie, but when we arrived, this is what we found (now switching back to my pictures):

She was tired.  And hot.  Her whole body was hot.  I figured she had just come in from a turn on the track, but she told me she had been resting for about an hour.  I moved her outside into the shade and tried cooling her off with some cold washcloths.  Eventually, another mother talked her into going home (she really didn’t want to!) and we blasted the AC in the car the whole way.  I took her temperature when we arrived home and it was 100.7…I imagine it was a bit higher than that back at the Relay!

She held Herbie for about five minutes and then fell asleep for the next 4 hours, rising only to eat a late supper and head to bed again, where she slept for 13 more hours!

The Lebanon County Relay for Life raised about $363,00 dollars with 95 teams in attendance, and the Paws for a Cause team raised $13,100, placing them 5th overall for funds raised, and first place among Youth groups!  Maddie walked 40 laps which equals ten miles.  Whew!

I’m so proud of Maddie and her team, and many thanks to Mrs. Holzman and Miss Liddic (rumor has it that Miss Liddic walked/ran a marathon at the event and her feet ended up strained and swollen). 

Maddie definitely plans to join the club next year, and Ben has been inspired and plans to join when he is in middle school.  Wouldn’t it be incredible if cancer were eradicated before Jack made it to middle school and never had a chance to join this club?

What WAS Dave Doing?

Many, many thanks to all TWO of you who submitted entries for my recent contest.  Sadly, we did not have a winner.  Both Stephanie and Jane Doe guessed correctly that in the first picture, Dave was building a raised garden bed.  I already have a raised vegetable bed, but I asked Dave to make another one for me so I could have a raised berry bed!  I was very excited about this project! 

Dave was too.

First he measured the area, making sure that three sweeps from the lawn mower to the fence would fit exactly (he’s such a think-aheader).  Then he and Jack dug out the top layer of soil/grass.  He started this part back in March and it took about a month of here-and-there digging to remove the top layer and go down a few inches.

Then he bought railroad ties (I guess that’s what they’re called) from Lowe’s and cut them to the correct length, placed them in, and secured them with huge bolts.

Last, he incorporated mushroom soil into both gardens.  This year he also added a fence to my vegetable garden because since the Great Green Bean Massacre of 2011 I have given up on keeping the bunnies at bay, but I didn’t want to put a fence around the berry garden, because I had this picture in my mind of my children pausing from their personal studies of opera or chemistry or possibly from their housekeeping chores this summer, wandering out to the garden, then picking themselves a nice little snack of raspberries or blueberries or strawberries, and I didn’t want them hindered by a fence.

Unfortunately, the DANG bunnies are eating the strawberries, and the DANG birds are eating the blueberries.  The raspberry bush is not mature enough for fruit, so time will only tell.   DANG it!

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for (or at least Stephanie and Jane Doe have):

<Drum roll>

Dave was building me a built-in bookshelf!  We started with this half wall between our breakfast area and living room:

All I asked for was a bookcase, but Dave decided to make it a built-in.

After Dave removed the “cap” from the original wall, we wrote ourselves a little time capsule on the top:

Why did someone write “AGRICULTURE”?  I DO NOT KNOW.   Maybe it’s a little mystery for the people of the future.

Kevin at the Sherwin Williams store in Palmyra helped us match our paint PERFECTLY.  He took over 35 minutes to do it, but it matched our original paint beautifully!

Original Mystery Picture…Dave was caulking the new baseboards around the bookshelf:

And finally, the finished product!

Thanks, Big D. I LOVE it!

Ah.  Well, I hardly think that was necessary.