Vacation Part II

Darcy and I got back from South Carolina, slept, and then picked up our next vacation, part II, at the airport. My cousin's wife and daughter Jaimee and Lilly arrived at the crack of dawn for a few days. Jaimee has 156 different degrees and jobs, one of which is her own photography business, and she was in town to shoot a wedding. That's how important she is...people fly her into town to shoot their wedding!

Jaimee had to get up at 2:45 for her 5:30 flight and supposedly hadn't gone to bed until 1:00 that morning, so any chance she got the entire day she napped. Not really, but ninety percent of the time, she thought about it. We spent the day having our nails and toes done, swimming in my pool, and playing games with friends since they arrived on Family Night, our every other weeknight dinner and games with friends. Alcohol may or may not have been involved, and by the game portion of the evening, we had lost SueG, who slept sitting up on the couch. 

The next day was the wedding. Lily was the assistant. I was the Uber driver. It took longer for them to slap on make-up, dress, and bundle up the camera equipment than it did for me to drive them to the high falooting beach resort some forty-five minutes away. The rain stayed away, the wedding went off on the beach, I picked them back up that evening, and the real fun began.

..We did all of the touristy things; eating on the beach, walking tourist shops, taking photos, etc. Darcy's boy toy joined us (more on that later), Tom accompanied us, and the day went by fast and lasted longer. We didn't eat dinner until almost 11:00 p.m. Jeez, hanging out with the young folks.

The next morning we were up and on the road by 8:00 a.m. We had kayaking reservations north of us, something we had done the last time Jaimee was in town, and we loaded up the van, stopped along the way for sandwiches, and made it just in the nick of time before the kayak people started charging a dollar for each minute we were late. A fact Darcy didn't mention to us until afterward, but it certainly explained her stress on time management.

Our kayak trip was four hours. We had two two-seater kayaks and two one-seater kayaks. The men took the singles, and the ladies took the doubles. Jaimee and I paired up last time, beat the rest back to shore, and decided why mess with perfection? The answer to that came later after four hours of paddling; uh, weight. It was the guyfriend's first experience kayaking, and his competitive nature had him wanting to race, which resulted in his kayak overturning, spilling him into the gulf. While it was funny, and certainly a great photography moment, we had all opted to leave our camera phones behind. Communing with nature. Family togetherness. That sort of thing, darn it.

Actually, we were worried we would get them wet. We have zero pictures of us kayaking except for the before and after van photos. We paddled far and wide, had lunch on a secluded beach, swam some in the Gulf, and returned home sunburned and with enough energy to spend the next few hours in the pool playing three very vicious, competitive games of water volleyball that took about two hours to complete and ended with us pouring chlorine into the pool to counterbalance the amount of urine that might have been leaked from the laughter.

For documentation purposes only, I just want to say that the Fukouwe Tribe Team of Lily, Jaimee, and Cara held its own and scored the trophy for the best team name and chant. What I wouldn't give for videos of Jaimee leading our cheer. Which might have added more to the need for chlorine than anything else.

Tom cooked a great steak dinner to top off the evening, and we deemed the day a success and one we will replicate in the future.

The last day was spent at the beach and deserves its own entry. We watched the sunset, the girls got tattooed, and we did more and more beach nonsense as Jaimee and Lily's plane kept getting pushed back for departure. They finally took off for home at midnight, leaving behind a tired bunch of vacationers. 

From the family in South Carolina to the family visiting us in Florida, it was the best week of summer vacation. Jammed pack, we made memories and laughed and loved. It was awesome!