JoyUnspeakable

Well, we finally made it home. This is my third two-week vacation, and I highly recommend it. A one week vacation definitely doesn’t cut it. Two weeks is pretty much perfect. At about day ten, you have just about forgotten what’s waiting for you at home.

Just when I expected to come home to a messy living room, I discovered that our friends who were watching our house cleaned up for us. How awesome is that?!

Last night, I took the girls to Movie Tavern to see Cars 2. It’s a pretty cool place where you order your pub grub meal at the concession counter, and they bring it out to your seat when the movie starts. The food was decent, and I took home a gigantic refillable stein. I had filled it with Movie Tavern Ale, which was very tasty. Unfortunately, I can’t drink that much beer (anymore), so if I ever fill it again, I’m going to need a partner to split it.

This morning we started our drive home. Nothing really all that exciting to report about it. I’ve unloaded the car, then went out and picked up two pizzas for dinner (one gluten-free with portobello, and a chicken-parm pizza for the girls and I).

After eating out for two weeks, I’m sure that I have put on all of the weight that I took off when I started dieting and exercising two years ago (about 45 pounds last year). Tomorrow I weigh in for the QVC Healthy Lifestyles checkup. I’m sure I won’t be happy, so it’s time to start back up on the diet and exercise plan again.

Well, we survived our night at that Red Roof Inn. Wasn’t the best place, but the price was right, and there was free wifi. I suppose if I was driving through and needed a place to stay, I’d go back.
We left from there to spend a few hours at Virginia Beach, and I’m glad we did. The girls absolutely loved the beach! They made sand castles and loved getting their feet – and in Domino’s case, her whole body wet by the waves. We didn’t go in our suits, because we didn’t have beach towels with us. We ended up rinsing off the sand, and then changing the girls into new outfits when we were done. I’m not a beach person, but the smiles on the kids’ faces makes me want to bring them back again soon.
We left the beach to go to Williamsburg, which is where we are now. We didn’t do much here other than swim, play in the room, and watch some tv. But it was relaxing. I’m about to take the girls to the Movie Tavern and watch Cars 2.

This morning, we got up early and did a walking pirate tour in downtown Charleston. If you Googled “Charleston Pirate”, the number one hit is probably the tour we took. It was a very cool tour. Aside from the historical stuff about specific pirates, some things I learned were that pirates never say “Aarrr”, pirates never made anybody “walk the plank”, and one reason pirates wore patches over one eye is so when they enter a dark area, they can move the patch to the other eye and be able to see immediately without having to wait for their vision to adjust.

After the tour, we walked to a restaurant recommended to us called Jestine’s Kitchen. Apparently, it was featured on TV with Rachael Ray and some other famous people. They have down home cooking. When I said to the waitress, “so, you’re famous for your meatloaf?” she responded “You should order whatever you love to eat but hate to cook.” I thought that was excellent advice. I ended up getting the meatloaf sandwich, which I thought was pretty good.

After lunch, we left for Virginia Beach, which is where we are right now. Was a long drive, but we’re here. We’re staying at a Red Roof Inn. It’s a bit lower-class than I’m used to, but then again, I don’t stay in many hotels outside of business trips. It was cheap, and reminds me of some scary movies. Hopefully the car is still here with all of its stuff in it when we wake up tomorrow, and that there aren’t any bugs that I need to worry about, too.

Last night, the kids were insane. From the time they got to the hotel room, to the time they got to bed, they were full of energy. I guess that’s what happens when you’re in the car for six hours. In the room, they were jumping off of the furniture, playing hide-and-seek, yelling, screaming, giggling, laughing, climbing on mom, climbing on me, bouncing off of each other. Non-stop.

Marie stayed at home when I took the kids to the Noisy Oyster, and they were fairly good while we were there. But then when we got back to the hotel, after 9PM, the kids wanted to go swimming. When we got to the pool, they – especially Carolena, were wired up again. I was nervous with Carolena, because the pool was not a  kid’s pool. But she would go to the stairs, and come down two steps, and then jump to me and scream “I did it!” and then “again! again!” I think she jumped off of the step about 30 times, saying the same thing every time. She was giddy, excited, and loud. Very cute. Way too much energy for that time of night. Domino was pretty wired up, too. They each had a great time in the pool.

Had dinner at a place called The Noisy Oyster. Was pretty good. Started with some really good crab dip, followed by a dish of grits with shrimp, sausage, and other goodies in it, smothered in some kind of gravy. Was extremely filling. Was kind of like a Red Lobster inside, with lots of boat-related things on the walls and ceiling.

We have arrived safely at our hotel in North Charleston, SC. I think I got a good deal on the hotel room. Who knows? There’s two Select Comfort beds in the room, and there’s free WiFi, and an indoor pool, so we have enough to keep us occupied. We’re going to go out for dinner tonight, and then we have a fun morning planned with a pirate tour in downtown Charleston before we head North to our next destination.

It’s been a long day of nothing. We checked out of the Marriott this morning and checked in to the Rosen Shingle Creek convention center. This is a very big resort. Marie spent the day doing convention stuff. It stormed a few times today, and I mostly spent the day with the girls hanging out in the room.
Right now, Marie and I are here at the banquet for the National Federation of the Blind. I believe there are about 2970 people that registered for the National Convention. There are probably over half of them here at the banquet. The kids are in babysitting. The meal was fine – typical banquet chicken dinner. Now various people are giving motivational speeches. Talks of movies that represent blind people as incapable and requiring babysitters. Talks about blind people getting paid sub-minimum wages. Talks about technology changes that must be made to make things accessible.
Tomorrow we leave Orlando and will drive to Charleston, South Carolina. Hopefully we get out the door early, and we can spend the afternoon enjoying the city.

This morning, we had breakfast with Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy at the Cape May Cafe in Disney’s Beach Club Resort. Albeit expensive, the breakfast was very tasty and the staff were extremely friendly. During breakfast, each of the characters make their way around to each table, where you can get pictures and autographs of the stars. Unfortunately, Caroelna was a bit scared of getting close to each character, but she did warm up to them eventually. I was able to include Carolena in the pictures if I held. Hopefully they came out well.

The rest of the day was spent helping Marie with her Herbalife table and doing lots of laundry.

Tomorrow we check out of the Marriott and in to the Rosen Shingle Creek resort.

Another very long day at Sea World. We got to see the shows that we missed, plus we paid for the Makahiki Luau for dinner. It was an excellent show. I’m glad we did it. And the timing worked out that when that show ended, the Shamu Rocks show was right after that, which was immediately followed by the fireworks show. Domino lasted the whole night, but Carolena passed out during the fireworks. Both girls loved every show we went to. Love seeing their faces light up at each one.

Had an awesome day at SeaWorld today with Domino and Carolena. I remember seeing most of the shows from the last time we were there, but seeing the look on Domino’s and especially on Carolena’s faces at each show was priceless. They had such an awesome time. And both of them were troopers. It was a very hot long day, and they each held up really well. We’re going to go back tomorrow, too, since the price of a single-day admission includes a free second day. But I think we got to do just about everything that we could do with Carolena involved.