Being prepared

So my neighbor had to leave unexpectedly to go out of town. When I saw them packing up and getting ready to head out, I offered to look in on their cats. They were planning on taking them on a 32 hour round trip car ride. Yikes. I am human, and I cannot imagine that. She said she hated to ask, and I pointed out that she did not ask. And I won, we have 2 sweet kitties to check on. The kids L-O-V-E this. They remind me about 32 times a day that we need to go check on the cats. So we walk across the street and feed them, clean out their litter, etc.

Tonight, it was time to head over and I could not find the children. Anywhere. I thought, maybe they were waiting for me on the porch. Nope. I called for them and they hollered from upstairs that they were "getting ready." Getting ready? To walk 25 steps across the street? I heard Jessa say, "Spencer, put your coat on." In summer? Well they FINALLY got ready. They came downstairs dressed like, well, I'll just let you see for yourself.

Jessa had her pockets filled.

"Mom," she said, "we have to be prepared."

Spencer had an interesting addition to his hat.

Not quite where you normally see a propeller.

He is holding a rubber snake.

Now that is prepared.

And in the next photo, my 6 year old uttered the lovely phrase,
"It's tight, yo." Note hand gesture.

I don't even know what she was referring to or really what that even means.

I am so old and unhip.

Then on our way out the door, to walk ACROSS OUR STREET, Jessa pulled out and consulted "The Map."

They are so crazy.

It was a pirate map.

It didn't even look like our neighborhood.

Oh, and Spencer said, "Mom, the 'X' is the treasure. And the treasure is the cats."

Then they proceeded to walk 10 paces behind me the whole way there and the whole way back. When I asked why, Jessa sighed, rolled her eyes, and said, "Mom, we are spies."

Overdressed, extremely conspicuous, very prepared and absolutely precious spies.

Army brats

We are an Army Family. We have the parts of it that we love, new places, new friends, new stuff, welcome home celebrations, travel. We have the parts that we do not love, packing, leaving, moving, saying good-bye, deployments.

Summer is prime moving time for the military. And it is so good to be on a summer moving pattern because the kids do not have to change schools in the middle. I am already planning like 3 moves in advance to try and help the kids avoid that. Being new is bad enough without adding, in the middle of the year to it!

I digress. In the summer, on a military installation, when you drive through housing you are constantly dodging trucks. Just today, driving from our house to the other side of base, we saw 4 trucks. Today. This summer, we have had 3 houses in our general area pack up and move. We were really sad last Thursday when our next door neighbor, Father Bailey moved. We all loved him - especially the kids. He was their best customer every time they had a lemonade stand! And boy is the turnover on base is quick. He cleared his house last Thursday and yesterday there were new cars there. Wow!

So this morning, Spencer and I were snuggling and watching some cartoons while he was still waking up. He heard a truck outside. He asked, "is it garbage day?" I told him, "no, I bet it is a moving truck next door." And he looked puzzled. "Mom, Father Bailey already moved." And I said, "I know. And now more people are moving in." "Oh," he said. No big deal. He is used to it. He did not even go and look. Army Brat.

Then a few minutes later, Jessa woke up and wandered down stairs. She was still half asleep. She glanced up and out the window, in front of our house, all she could see was this:

She looked out the window. She looked at Spencer and me. She looked out the window. She looked back at Spencer and me. And then my sweet little Army Brat calmly and quietly asked me a question. She was not upset or worried. Just curious. "Hey, Mom. Are we moving somewhere today?" I got so tickled at her. That is my ever adaptable girl. My perfect Army Brat! She was not unhappy, just checking. I took the opportunity to assure her that if we were moving, her first clue would not be a truck pulling up to the house. We would definitely give her some warning!

And then,

they huddled at the window to take part in another

time-honored Army Brat tradition:

checking out the new neighbors to see if they have KIDS!

(or more accurately, kids with better toys then they have. . .)

An eye for detail

I have already told you that we had the perfect vacation. There were so many things that were so much fun and so special. I am going to share one more significant story, and then I am going to stop being obnoxious about our trip, OK??

Jessa is the daredevil child. You know, she'll try anything. She leaps! She is confident and not afraid and willing to give anything a shot.

She was happy to play out in the ocean with David.

She was happy to float on the waves.

She even said it was her lifelong dream to ride some ocean waves.

How lucky she is to have her life complete at age 6!

Spencer is more standoffish. He likes to sit back and watch things. He is not one to jump in to anything. So one afternoon while David and Jessa were out being brave and spalshing in the surf, I suggested to Spencer that we take a little walk. So we started walking and looking for shells.

It was so much fun.

He was so precious.

He is a detail man, and he is always spotting things wherever we go.

So this shell hunting thing was right up his alley. And I loved looking at the shells through his eyes. Most people when they are walking along the beach, looking at shells, they want the biggest and the best and the most well preserved. Not my boy. He found all sorts of cool shells that were broken or even only a small piece.

He did not pick up just anything. I am not saying that he did not have standards. Now, I never could figure out exactly what attracted him to any one piece.

I am betting he could not have put it into words either.

But it was magical.

Walking along, listening to the waves

and watching my sweet boy concentrating on what he might find.

The funniest part was then we found something. I was all excited. Spencer, I said, I think I founds some coral. He looked at me and shook his head. He said, Nope, Mom, that's gum. When we got back to David, he confirmed Spencer's proclomation. It was indeed gum. Yuck!

Spencer also got Jessa and David in on the act.

We walked along the next morning and found all sorts of cool things.

And of course, Spencer and Jessa both found tons of treasures.

They may not look like treasures to us, but to them, they are priceless memories of a great vacation!

Babies+Vacation= PICTURES

Not sure what is up with blogger, BUT I keep losing all of my witty and insightful remarks that I added to go with these pictures. I am trying again, although the wit and insight may be at a minimum. . .

I love taking and sharing pictures of my babies.

I love taking and sharing pictures of our vacation.

Here is the best of both:

Want to what one of the best things about vacation to the kids (OK, and me, too)??

HOTEL!

A room with 2 beds is perfect for hotel gymnastics.

Sorry, my camera could not keep up with them!

Hotel beds are FUN!

And they come in handy, since playing all day at the beach can wear you out, you know?

David's idea:

He confessed later it was so he could take a nap. . .

Driftwood pose:

Even elevators are cooler on vacation!

They are so patient with me. . .

Climbing old trees is so much fun!

Spencer - safety first.

Even though he was 10 feet from the water, he was prepared.

LOVE THESE FACES!

Why, yes, she is climbing a tree in a dress.

And no, I can't do much with her. . .

My little Mermaid:

We had just checked into the hotel and they HAD to put on swimsuits and check out the ocean first thing. It did not matter that it was dark! Jessa said that David and I should enjoy it because it was "romantic."

Only one more vacation post to come, I promise.

The Only Island

UPDATED
I have no idea why a draft posted earlier today. I could not find the finished post, so I had to rewrite it. It was so frustrating, but here it is. Again. The right one this time, I hope.

I know that there are hundreds of islands in the world. I know that there are states that practically every edge is bordered by water. I know that there are fancy resorts with bars in the pool and umbrellas on the beach. I know that there are any number of places that you can go for a beach vacation. But to me, the choice is easy. When I was little, Momma and Daddy always took Lucas and me to the same place, so to me, there is only one place to go.

Jekyll Island, Georgia

It is such an awesome, special place. It has the ocean and beaches, but it is extra special because it is still GA with beautiful live oaks dripping with Spanish Moss.

Jekyll Island is not a heavily commercial area, either. There are all sorts of regulations to keep the island preserved. There are only a handful of places to eat and shop. In fact, when we were smaller, we always went to St. Simons Island for supper because there were not any nice places to eat on Jekyll. We were pleasantly surprised by lots of new places to eat this time - we never even left the island once we arrived!

I love Jekyll because of the dunes. The dunes are protected to keep the beach erosion to a minimum. Now because of this, you cannot walk out of your hotel room and onto the beach. But I even love that about Jekyll Island! When you are on the beach and you look back toward the hotel, you see this:

It sort of makes you feel like you are on a deserted island, you know?

And speaking of deserted island, the beach is rarely too crowded. You can always find a place to set up your area that is away from people or you can walk forever all by yourself.

And Jekyll Island has bike paths that go all over the place. When Lucas and I were younger, we always rented bikes at the hotel to tool around on. I was so anxious to share this with my babies, too. The hotel rented bikes for $5 per TWO hours. And even though they had kids bikes and even one with training wheels for Spence, we opted for the trailer thingy pulled behind David's bike. We figured we would not get too far with them doing all the work!

Ready to ROLL!

This was my view during our ride. I even had to stop to take this.

I am barely coordinated enough to keep myself upright without adding photography to the mix!

Another highlight for me was the Miniature Golf Course. We always played there when we were little, and I was so relieved to see that it had not changed. I mean it had been painted a few times, but the basic layout of the holes was the same. It is so great to see something that is a classic not try to make improvements just for the sake of progress. And the kids LOVED it!

After a while, Spencer got a little bored with the whole thing.

Not Jessa.

She was ready to go for another 18!

Some beach vacations do not involve wildlife sightings. That is another cool thing about Jekyll Island. There is a great chance you will get to see animals. And the animals are so tame. We were right next to them for a long time without spooking them. I can remember feeding squirrels practically out of my hand as a child.

We saw deer:

We saw a raccoon:

And we even ate supper on a porch with a cat that belonged to the restaurant:

Notice how obsessed our children are with this cat. It was like they had never seen one before.

A nifty NEW thing about Jekyll Island since I was little is The Georgia Sea Turtle Center. We had heard good things and were anxious to check it out.

We were not disappointed! It was so amazing. The kids got to learn all about the life cycles of Sea Turtles and Diamondback Terrapins. There was a surgery area where you could view vets working on the turtles. The kids got to ask questions and get stamps at each station that they visited.

The best part was the Sea Turtle Hospital:

You could visit actual rescued Sea Turtles and read their diagnosis, their treatment, and their prognosis. Here are a couple of turtles who were recovering there.

Our trip was perfect. We all had so much fun. It was nice for David to be on leave and with us non-stop for the first time since this time last year.

And it was so special to share a Jekyll Island vacation with my little family.

And here's hoping this was the first of MANY. . .