Care for an Oreo?

Our family vacation to Destin, Florida with Sheryl's family was terrific, featuring white sand, blue water, fireworks and good food. We left for Destin with anxiety about sharks attacking just days before, and left Destin with anxiety about Hurricane Dennis arriving days later. It was an "Oreo" trip - time at the beach was the creamy white filling between two dark cookies (sharks and hurricanes) on either side. It was a Traditional Oreo for me, a Double-Stuf Oreo for Sheila and the boys, as I flew out of Destin Tuesday morning and everyone else is driving in tomorrow. Okay, enough with the cookie metaphors.

We drove 11 hours on Saturday to get to Destin around 8pm, and it was still light enough to see that the sand was whiter and the water bluer than anything we saw in Padre. The most interesting detail of the beach was the sand - it felt like brown sugar, bigger and "sturdier" than the sand in Padre. It's hard to describe but everyone commented on it. Sheryl's sister (Cande) rented a house on the beach for the week to help celebrate her husband Steve's 50th birthday. I immediately dubbed the house "The Taj Ma-Cande" because it was 3 stories tall, had 6 bedrooms, and easily (EASILY) cost $10,000 to rent for the week! We stayed in a very nice condo across the street from the Taj, which gave us access to a swimming pool as well as the beach. Good thing, too, because Braden and I were in the pool by 7:30am Sunday and Monday, giving everyone else a chance to get some more sleep as well as giving us some quality Father-Son time. His favorite things to do at the pool were dunking me under the water (no big surprise there) and throwing a rock into the pool, having me "fetch" it, and then letting him try to guess which hand it was in. I bet we played "fetch" for a good hour both mornings.

Cande and Steve had all three of their girls, with their husbands and their children (four in all) staying in the house with them, as well as members of Steve's family, and friends -- who can know how many there were? "Too many" would be the correct answer, and I think they started getting crabby with each other by about Saturday evening.

Sunday was beautiful, with the boys having a heyday on the beach, Shelley and I getting a private dinner at a wonderful restaurant with superb waitstaff, and me getting to go to bed early with the boys while Sheila, Jamie and the other family members from our generation went out to a club until ??am.

Monday was a repeat of Sunday's weather at the beach, followed by a catered birthday dinner at the Taj. The highlight was, of course, the fireworks, which proud Americans shot off up and down the beach as far as you could see in either direction. Austin led the discharge of the pyrotechnics in our party, (Steve Horst would have had a tear in his eye, and not just from the heavy smell of sulfur). I have to admit that the site of Austin in the moonlight with the waves crashing behind him and a burning punk clinched between his teeth made me a little emotional, too! Some of the fireworks had too loud a report for some in our party, but that didn't deter Austin from emptying our depot of all its treasure.

Tuesday morning I got up at 4:45am to make a 6:25 flight out of Ft. Walton Beach airport, with a scheduled arrival time in Houston (via DFW airport) of 10:30am. I saved $40 flying American Airlines through DFW as opposed to booking a direct flight on Continental into Houston. Here's how that worked out for me:

7:00am - Left FWB late due to rerouting and refueling to accommodate for weather in Central Texas;
9:15am - landed in Waco, TX while DFW was closed to ground traffic due to thunderstorms;
9:15 - 12:30pm - sat in the (small) plane on the tarmac in Waco because six AA planes had landed in Waco with us, creating a potential security problem if we all came into the terminal at the same time;
12:30pm - left Waco;
1:15pm - landed DFW;
2:15pm - pulled into a terminal at DFW after waiting an hour behind a dozen other planes which had landed ahead of us and waited for a terminal, too;
2:15 - 3:30pm - considered physically harming one or more human beings over the slightest provocation, as effective but ultimately counter-productive stress reliever;
3:30pm - left DFW;
4:50pm - arrived in Houston, nearly 11 hours after getting on the plane in FWB and at the EXACT SAME TIME I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN THERE HAD I RENTED A CAR IN FLORIDA AND DRIVEN BACK!
Wednesday, 9:00am - turned in PTO request for missing work Tuesday, which cost us a wee bit more than the $40 dollars we "saved" by buying the cheaper airfare. (Note to self: fly non-stop whenever possible.) Oh, and by getting to the house after 6:00pm, I was unable to get Snoopy from the kennel Tuesday night, costing us an extra $15 insult. (Note to self: #%^/~*@!)

Shelley and the boys had a carefree day on Tuesday, followed by a rainy Wednesday and a gorgeous Thursday. Thursday was marred only by a brief "incident" at the pool. It seems Braden needed to go to the bathroom, so he got out of the pool, pulled down his trunks, and began to pee into the water. Guests at the pool were described as "mortified", none less so than Shelley, who immediately raced towards Braden directing him to stop. Witnesses describe what happened next as an "intentional aim adjustment", resulting in his peeing on his Mother's head, arms and hands, no doubt as she waved them in horror at this wet assault. As is so often the case in these matters, Shelley (after surfacing from the cleansing waters of the pool) took Braden away for appropriate discipline, while Austin, Jamie and others laughed unabashedly at our little angel's latest caper.

Concerns about "evacuation" plans being broadcast in Destin prompted them to leave a day early, on Friday morning instead of Saturday. Jamie will help Shelley with the driving and the boy-management, and will return home to her hubby Saturday or Sunday.

And that's how I spent my summer vacation. Except the summer is only half over!

Next up: the Harris posse comes to town...