Our Get-Away (Day 4)

We were sad and happy for our last day.  We had about two hours to get ready/clean up/pack up.  It's so much faster when clean up doesn't involve kids lol!

I realized before we took off I hadn't taken any pictures of the condo.  So, here's what we pulled up to everyday.  There was actually a second two story house behind the one pictured that was where we stayed.

We left to get breakfast and head to the airport about 9:15.  As soon as we turned on the main street, Kevin turned on the radio and the song playing was, "Back to life, back to reality," and we laughed about how fitting the song was!

We grabbed breakfast at Einsteins bagels.  It was delish.

We said goodbye to our fun Mustang and made our way to check in at the airport.  It was raining a bit right before we started to board, but the rain stopped before take off.

Our flight was uneventful but the landing was a bit rough. I did think I may lose my breakfast with all the sharp turns and quick drops.  But I didn't.  We arrived in St Louis about 1:30.

We made plans to stop at the IKEA store before we headed home.  I stocked up on my favorite napkins, straws, knives and cups.  We also picked up a shelf for the boys room.  I'm hoping that gets assembled this weekend!

The three hour drive back home seemed to take forever!  We were ready to get home to the kids!  We were greeted with huge hugs and requests for souvieners.  Austin hugged me and said, "I like your hat mom!"  He's such a sweetie.  The kids loved what we picked out for them.  We spent the rest of the night and the next day making up for 3 lost days of snuggling :)

Our Get-Away (Day 3)

We knew it was our last full day of vacation, so we wanted to squeeze in every last little thing we could to do.  I wasn't exactly satisfied with the shells I picked up so I wanted to go shelling again early in the morning.  We went back to where we had the most luck, Honeymoon Island.  We knew the tide was higher in the morning so we got there as soon as the park opened at 8am, hoping to find a better selection of shells.  We didn't realize high tide virtually eliminated the sandy beach, but needless to say, high tide wasn't the right time to go and we left with no shells.  BUT we did have a good two hours to lay on a patch of dry sand and enjoy the sounds of the ocean.  There were hardly any visitors early in the morning so it was very relaxing.  About 10am all the families with kids started rolling in and we decided we'd stayed long enough.

We passed a little antique shop right before we got to Honeymoon Island and I told Kevin I wanted to stop in there on our way out.  The husband/wife shop owners were there and didn't welcome us... Sort of unusually for small shop owners I'd imagine.  Lots of booth owners were coming in and out and they seemed chatty with the owners.  Then they sort of followed us around and said loud enough for us to hear, "What's this on the floor?!"  I looked at the floor because I was in the booth next to them and it looked like sand.  It could have very well come from Kevin or I since we just got off the beach, but I didn't think it did since we rinsed off after we left the beach.  They sat there making a scene about what was all over their floor.  Kevin and I took that as a que to leave and we decided we didn't need anything in their shop anyways.  And if they are so worried about sand in their store, why did they open it a block from the beach?  And why even open a shop in Florida for that matter?  

We didn't let rude shop owners ruin our day though.  We drove another 45 mins past Clearwater to Indiana Shores.  There's a bird sanctuary we visited.  It houses permanently injured birds.  We saw some cute Pelicans and a big hawk and several other birds.

We ate lunch at a Boston Market because we'd never tried one before.  It wasn't great.  Don't stop at one if there's another place to eat!  They mostly serve rotisserie chickens and sides.  The chicken was really, really dry and the sides weren't fresh.

After lunch we drove up the coast back to Clearwater.  We stopped at a few shops in the way back but didn't buy anything.  (The picture above was from the shop complex we stopped at.)  Kevin wanted to go jet skiing on the bay, but we priced it and didn't think it was worth $140 for an hour, so we headed back to our condo and decided to be beach bums.  We stayed on the beach for a couple hours.  It was pretty quiet due to a 5 minute rain shower that cleared out half the beachgoers.  

About 4:30 we decided to get cleaned up and try a restaurant on the strip that caught our attention since the day we arrived in town... Bob HEILMANS Beachcomber.  Yes, that's my maiden name, spelled exactly the same way.  We knew it was a nicer place and I'm so glad we saved it for our last dinner out!

We were served 4 courses.  The first complimentary appetizer included cottage cheese, apple cinnamon butter, corn salsa, and a horseradish beet dip all served with crackers.  Our serve told us to mix the horseradish beet dip with the cottage cheese.  I was skeptical, but it was actually really good!!!

Next was our soup/salad/bread that came with our meals.  We both chose the sirloin soup and it was delicious!  The bread basket was filled with sourdough bread, banana nut bread, and a molasses muffin.  I didn't get a salad but Kevin did.  We were both full after course 2!  It was all SO GOOD!!!

For main courses, I ordered their signature chicken dinner (I was thinking baked, not fried, but it was still good!) with mashed potatoes and broccoli and Kevin ordered a fish platter.

And lastly, we added to our misery by ending with a turtle sundae.  It was delicious but we hardly ate any because we were so full!

This was our most expensive place we ate but it was also the best food we ate!  The restaurant was clean, not overly crowded and we'd highly recommend it to anyone that was in the area!  

After dinner we decided to walk the strip bc we were so miserably full.  Kevin went into the CVS next to the restaurant and bought popcorn.  We took it to the area by the pier so we could feed the birds.  Actually, he fed the birds and I just took pictures!

We were so content sitting there after the birds left that we stayed and watched a bride/groom that had just got married take pictures, sailboats cruise by, and the sun set.  

We called it a night after watching the sun set and had another quiet evening back at the condo.

Austins Injury

***What would an injury post be without graphic pictures?! Be warned, they are below!

Monday was the start of life as usual.  Kevin went back to work and I had plans of working on laundry and getting the house in order.  The day went well until dinner time.  We ate outside and when everyone was done, the kids got up to run/play and Kevin and I were trying to talk.  I had a spider crawl up my leg and another bug fly in my face and we decided to just go inside and let the kids keep playing.  No sooner did the back door shut then we heard Austin shriek.  We knew it wasn't good.  Kevin quickly opened the back door and Austin and Allie were running towards us.  Allie told us Austin had stepped in the fire.  (On Father's Day Kevin started burning limbs we had piled up in our yard.  We had kept the fire going about 24 hours, but Monday afternoon we let it die down.  There was no open flame but the embers were still smoking.)

(A picture from Father's Day. You can see the smoke from the fire in the background.)

I heard what happened and raced to the bathroom to get the cold water running. (My niece had a bad burn to her hand just over a year ago and I remember learning a tad bit about burns then, and knew you were supposed to immediately put them in cold water.) Austin was in a lot of pain.  We held his foot under the cold water and he got immediate relief.  He stopped crying about 30 seconds after his foot was in the water and declared, "I all better!"  We hadn't assessed the burn yet so we took the opportunity to do that after he said it wasn't hurting.  We thought maybe it was small, and maybe it really was all better?  After turning his foot over he began screaming (basically as soon as the cold water stopped) and we realized the burn covered a big section of his foot.  It took about two hours to get him calmed down.  He'd bite his blanket, start shaking his other limbs as a result of the pain, and just scream.  I've never seen him in so much pain and it hurt me.  We did a cold compress and Kevin ran to CVS to get hydrogel burn pads.  That's finally what settled him down.   

{I have to add that I love how all the other kids rally in and help when one is down.  We praised Allie for being so alert and being able to immediately tell us what happened.  Hayden and Krissy were constantly finding his favorite things and bringing them to him to try and comfort him.  Hayden was bringing snacks and drinks over trying to help calm him down.  It just warmed my heart to see them caring for Austin.}

Surprisingly, Austin slept all night that night.  We gave him ibuprofen immediately after it happened and Tylenol before bed.  We had plans to be gone all day Tuesday that I ended up not changing.  We spent most of Tuesday at Christmas Lake and the kids played inside and watched tv.  It worked out perfect for him to have a lazy day there (I knew if we were home it would be harder for him to rest because he wants to be outside all day, everyday.).  I carried him everywhere and he didn't mind one bit.

We scheduled a doctors appointment for Tuesday evening and the doctor confirmed 2nd degree burns and prescribed him some antibiotic cream.  

(Picture from Friday morning) 

The blister popped Thursday night and he's been able to walk unassisted for short periods of time.  He also started running a low grade fever Thursday evening that got us worried.  After a quick Google search we read that was common.  There seems to be no sign of infection, so we are thankful.  We are also thankful that the injury was on the bottom of his foot where we don't have to be too concerned about scarring.  

We are changing bandages twice a day.  The doctor told us to expect to do this for 2-4 weeks.  He always says it tickles when I change them, and again, I'm thankful for that!

This was our first major burn we've had to deal with.  Between me and you, Austin is probably the toughest 2 year old ever.  And he's the happiest kid.  I hate this happened to him but I'm sure he's learned a lesson about fires and so did all the other kids! 

Father's Day 2016

Our Fathers Day celebration was perfect. 

I asked Kevin what he wanted to do and he said "grill".  He's quite the griller so we invited all our family over for a lunch.  I gave him his gifts before FL which consisted of new clothes and a Dad robe that coordinated with the Mom one he gave me for Mother's Day!  

I made him his favorite breakfast: grands biscuits, over medium eggs, and bacon cooked in the microwave.  After breakfast he decided to hang up the hammock I gave him last year for Father's Day! Haha!  The kids spent much of the morning arguing about whose turn it was on the hammock.  

Lunch was Mexican and Kevin grilled fajita chicken and everyone that came brought sides/dessert.  I also made tuxedo brownies for dessert because they are Kevin's favorite.  The kids and their cousins played in the sprinkler and the adults sat in the shade and enjoyed the company.  Everyone left before dinner time and our family just ate leftovers from lunch.  It was a nice low key day here at home!

Our Get-Away (Day 2)

We were both so exhausted after our first day that we slept descent that first night.  Our pillows were old and flat, so we added buying new pillows to our list of things to do that day!  (If you didn't know, I'm a bit of a weirdo in the pillow department.  I need at least 3 a night, and I prefer my own, but because we flew, I had to leave mine at home.)

We took off early on Day 2 to head to Fort Desoto Park.  It was about an hour away from Clearwater.  My parents had gone before and found great shells there.  We wanted to get there early so we left the condo shortly after 7. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts for breakfast.  I had a coffee cake muffin and Kevin got a crossoint sandwich.  Our shelling dreams didn't come true at Fort Desoto Park, but the beach was beautiful and there were some historic things worth seeing that peaked Kevin's interest!

We left the park about lunch time and stopped at Chick Fil A for salads!

We headed back towards Clearwater.  There was a Christmas shop I wanted to stop at on the main highway back.  We bought an ornament and also found two cute stuffed mermaids for the girls.  We made a pit stop at Sam's Club and bought 2 new pillows too.  Kevin wanted to rent bikes for a couple hours, so we headed to the strip in Clearwater.  

Parking is a major issue around the entire beach.  There's no free parking, and all the lots/streets fill up quickly.  We found a store's parking garage with open spots.  We had to walk through the store to get out to the strip, which worked out great because neither Kevin or I packed a hat and we both wanted one.  The store was adorable!  The clothes and jewelry were all so cute and the kids clothes and toys were just as fun!  We both bought a hat and made our way out front to the bike rentals.

There were several bike styles to choose from, including one tandem bike.  We both thought it looked like fun but the saleswoman told us it feels very different to ride and encouraged us to take it for a test drive.  It was so awkward and we almost crashed on the sidewalk.  We decided to go with regular bikes and they were so much fun to ride!  We had baskets on the front so we put our waters, map, phones, and purchases in them.

We rode up and down the main strip.  Kevin suggested we take a quick break at our favorite Florida ice cream shop, Kilwins.  It was delicious.  He got vanilla, I got cookies and cream.

We wanted a snorkel set and rode our bikes over to Walgreens off the strip.  Before we headed to the check out, I told Kevin we should pick up a bottle of aloe.  The cheapest brand had three different choices.  I was trying to read one bottle, and when I grabbed it, I knocked a whole row of bottles down.  I was embarrassed and tried to fix them, and in the process knocked down a second row.  My hands were full so I asked Kevin to try.  He knocked down two more rows on his first clean up attempt.  We were both dying laughing but still felt like we needed to fix them.  So, Kevin made another attempt and knocked down two more rows.  We were in disbelief that these bottles were so hard to fix!  I convinced him to walk away before the store fell in on us and I told him we'd just tell the cashier.  Our cashier knew exactly what bottles we knocked over because he said it happens several times a day; and no one wants to fix them because they are so impossible to clean up! 

Our two hour rental flew by.  We went back to the shop we parked at and grabbed the kids a Tshirt and some souvieners. 

We went back to our condo, took quick showers and got dressed up for another dinner out.  We decided since the night before was a flop, we'd go back to the highway and eat at a chain restaurant.  Smokey Bones sounded good and it ended up being delicious.  I wish the one back home wouldn't have closed!

We ran into Target, then went back to the strip to check out the night life.  There were several bars open and Kevin wanted a Corona.  I was still disappointed by my bad piña colada the night before so I thought I'd try one more before calling it quits.  This one was perfect!

We were back at the condo by 9 and ready for bed early!

Our Get-Away (Day 1)

Last Tuesday, Kevin and I set our alarms for 1am.  We had packed our bags the night before, so we just had to make ourselves presentable and headed out the door and headed towards St. Louis's airport.  We are not frequent flyers.  In fact, this was just our third time to fly (the last time was when I was pregnant with Hayden).  We recieved an email days before our departure telling us to arrive two hours before the scheduled take off, which meant 4:25am.  I was a little nervous about getting where we were going, getting through expectedly long check in lines, figuring out parking, etc.  Kevin had researched the airports parking and knew which lot we wanted to park in.  We got turned around at the airport and maybe did 3 circles around terminal 2 trying to read signs (it was still dark outside).  Our fears of being late got the best of us, so we both agreed to just park at the lot closest to the terminal that we kept circling.  It happened to cost twice as much as the one we were looking for, but we were ok with that.

The lines that we expected to be out the doors were not.  We quickly checked our bags, immediately got through security, and found ourselves with over an hour to kill before it was time to board.  And then we both started regretting we parked in the lot we had parked in.  Too late to spend time thinking about what we should have done though.  We found a little bagel shop by our gate and ate breakfast.  I was definitely more nervous about flying (dying) than Kevin was, but our flight was pretty smooth.

We arrived in Tampa at 9:35am (they are an hour ahead of us).  This was our first time to ever rent a car but we had no problems.  Kevin convinced me to live it up and get a convertible and that's exactly what we did.  And it was so much fun!  I had joked it would probably be an old ugly model, but it was a 2016 mustang convertible!  The Enterprise employer said they trade cars every year they don't keep anything after a year.  Who knew?  

We had a short drive over to Clearwater.  We stopped at the first Walmart we saw and got sunscreen, a bucket and bleach for our shells, and bottles of water.  We wanted to find our condo and unpack, so that's what we did next.

Or condo was the upstairs of a small house.  We entered through a back staircase and it was nice, quiet, and private.  While there wasn't any view from our condo, the beach was literally steps away.

We were anxious to make the most of our time together.  We ate a quick lunch at Frenchys Cafe (not terrible, homemade chips were yum, but mostly fish on the menu).  Kevin ordered a buffalo grouper sandwich and I had a cheeseburger.

Then we went back to the condo, put on swim suits and walked down to the pier and looked for shells along the way.  It was 16 blocks from our condo, but it didn't seem that long walking along the water.  We were both feeling pretty tired once we got to the Pier and sat down... but it was only like 2 in the afternoon!  We decided to walk back to the condo but this time off the beach so we could check out the little shops on the strip.  It got hot quickly!  

We went back and got the car and took a 30 minute drive to Honeymoon Island to see what kind of shells we could find there.  I nodded off twice on the drive over but we found lots of neat shells and rocks that made the trip totally worth our while!  We also saw some big turtles on the side of the road... And a sign that said beware of rattlesnakes!

Exhaustion was setting in but we decided a dinner on the beach would be the perfect way to end our day.  We picked the first beach restaurant we came to, Palm Pavillion.  It was crowded, but it wasn't impressive.  The food was meh and I ordered a piña colada that was not drinkable.  We were seated in the direct sun on the patio and I should have asked to be moved, but I didn't.  There were pigeons on the floor (that Kevin kept feeding fries to), and seagulls that we're getting jealous of the pigeons and swooping in at our table.  We ordered chips and salsa as an appetizer and minutes after it was delivered to our table, our food came out (am I the only one that hates that?!). I ordered grilled chicken and red potatoes.  Kevin got a chicken wrap.  Our beautiful view + ok food + not so great service and a $40 tab... we knew we wouldn't be coming back!

We got back to the condo, put on our cozy plush Mom/Dad robes and sat and watched cable tv!  That was a treat since we don't normally see many of those shows :). Before we called it a night, we made some tentative plans for day 2!