Busy, Busy, Busy...and Lazy!

Been a while since I posted anything. Something like 10 days, I think. I've been alternating between busy & lazy...if there IS such a mix.

The boys want to do something every day now that we are out of school. I'm a "stay-at-home" body. I have to be so much "on the clock" with scheduling while school is in session. I'd be happy if all I had to do was read, knit, and read some more, and piddle around the house. Not that I'm back knitting. Just that I should be. I've always got this "to do" list in my head, & of course, everything seems to be "top priority", so I usually don't feel like I've accomplished very much. Especially when you add in the "everyday" chores, like dishes & laundry. But I need to get crackin' because we still don't have our new children & we still don't have all the rooms ready. Part of the reason is that I want the kids to be able to make decisions regarding their rooms. For instance, our daughter will have a choice of white furniture or brown furniture. We feel like it's her room & she should make some choices, especially since it's what she will be living in day to day. Same goes for our new sons. We already have a very nice bed for one of them, but not the other. We still have to buy one more. Since they'll share a room we figure they can share beds, too, if they prefer to switch around. Anybeehooova, that still leaves getting rooms cleaned & prepared. Hubby's office will become the boys' room, so he'll have to move into my office/storage space. That's gonna take some doing. We may have to have one of our oldest sons come home with some of his friends to help out with the moving.

Meanwhile, Hubby is on vacation this week. We don't have anything major planned. It already began, though, on Friday. We left out for our hotel in Crystal River Beach Park, FL, about an hour & a half from here. Saturday morning started out with the indescribable. A HUGE full moon glowing a light orange & hanging just over the beach. There are no words I can think of to show you the picture I now have in my head of the entire setting. I was thrilled that I got to share it with my Hubby. Just the two of us. It was gorgeous! 

 Hubby was in the second of a series of three triathlons being held there at the beach. I always get so tickled with my Hubby & his races. He's so hard on himself to do better. He just wanted to shave some time off this time from his last race there. So he worked hard & shaved time off of the swimming & the biking. However, the running took longer. When he got back, he had added approximately 2 minutes to his previous race time. He was pretty aggrevated. I just smiled, but wanted to laugh. To me it's a BIG deal he's even doing these races AND completing them! If it were me, I'd probably drown in the first leg of the competition. Swim a quarter mile, bike 17 miles, and run 3.1 miles. Yeah...right. I've only just gone back to working out & I overheat on 3 minutes running straight. HA! He should be so proud of himself. He's now done a marathon (try 21+ miles of running!), and several triathlons and 5Ks. I'M so proud of him, even if HE is not recognizing this accomplishment enough! Take that & the added benefit that he just looks so darn sexy from it, too! :-)

So that's how his vacation started. Then we relaxed on the beach for a little bit after the race. From there we drove back & showered & went out to lunch. Crystal River has two wonderful seafood restaurants. One is Crackers & the other is called Charlie's.

Charlie's was just ranked number one in the area for food & service,  and we could see why. Besides the seafood they also had fried ice cream for dessert with some ice cream combos that were good ideas. We chose to split the apple pie fried ice cream. Delicious with chunks of real apple in it.

Crackers appeals to us because it has indoor AND outdoor dining. The outdoor dining is on a huge deck with a tiki bar overlooking the river. Very calming & relaxing. I'm always tempted to get some kind of frozen banana drink concoction, but so far I've resisted. Maybe I won't next time.

On the drive home we decided to stop & see the new Pixar movie, Rattatouie. I'm sure I've spelled that wrong (important to a teacher..ha). It was a cute little movie, though longer than I anticipated. I believe I timed it to be 1 hour, 50 minutes. But I love Pixar movies & I'd sit through it regardless.

Afterwards we called my MIL to borrow theirlawn mower. Ours needs a repair. My MIL is the sweetest woman & has the funniest & sometimes most unbelievable stories to tell, as does her husband. She invited us to stay to dinner. She'd made a homemade pizza. I don't think I've ever had a bad dish from my MIL. In fact, she's hard to beat when it comes to cooking...and you know the old adage: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. So I get some really good recipes from her. My only regret is that my Hubby's family is Northern, so they don't really appreciate Southern cooking. Hubby thinks a lot of what we consider normal food to taste odd or yucky, and my cooking never comes quite up to par to my MIL's. NOT that my Hubby complains, and he DOES like some things I cook. He's so sweet about that. He'll never say he doesn't like something I've made. He usually just has a slight smile & finds something nice he can say about it...like, "interesting taste, honey".  I've never met someone so picky in all my life, so when my MIL calls, I'm grateful that he gets to enjoy her cooking again. We also have a really good time talking & laughing about things.

So thanks to a triathlon, a couple of seafood restaurants, a movie, and the in-laws, we're off to a nice holiday. Hubby would like to return to the Kennedy Space Center. So I think we're doing that one day, and we'll return to the in-laws for Fourth of July lunch. But I think for once Hubby would like to feel like he got some rest. Perhaps some of that stems from the fact he's had to travel for most of the last 5 weeks with his work.

Either way it is our last vacation together where it is quiet & just the two of us before we add to our already large & extended family. I think we're happy & determined to enjoy it & one another...

 as I hope all of you will do over the Fourth of July holiday, too.

Tags: Crystal River Beach Park, Crackers Seafood Restaurant, Charlie's Seafood Restaurant, triathlons, marathons, 5Ks