Thursday -Pet Shop Boys (Let's warm Matt up for tomorrow!)


😂😂😂😂😂  💞  😚 -K


We are coming to the end, and I don't happen to like endings.  It reminds me of other endings I don't (and didn't) want to face..


My precious little guy in his special little nook. 💕


I couldn't drop out neglecting one of the best parts of the trip: Evan's little nook.

Oh, he is slowly coming into that in-between phase, and I can feel myself losing my last baby's childhood.  Ugh!!!  It's inevitable, and it is good.  Still, I cry.

And I cherished this potential "last."

We had a bit of an awkward balance in the rooms, and I had to work out the problem of where Evan could sleep.  He spends time with the teens/twenties half of the family, but he has too much little in him to hang 100%.  We didn't have enough rooms to give him his own, so I had to be smart and think quickly.  (Fortunately, making the kids happy tends to be my forte.)  

I didn't want him to even know we didn't, naturally, have a plan for his room.  So, I kicked it in high gear and scoured our vacation home.  I can't remember if it was my idea or someone else joked, but we landed on the little closet in our bedroom.  It had doors he could close, and I took the pillows from the living room couches to make a little bed, where he slept snuggled and content.  With us/on his own...


Florabama was also a real treat.

In the evenings, he would close the little doors, and we had to be careful about forgetting he was there,  (I wonder what all this kid has overheard over the years.  😱😂) and those moments were some of the most endearing I will keep. 

The next few days are a bit of a blur...

We had a canopy day at the beach...let's talk about that later.

We celebrated Father's Day at Alligator Alley...and I learned I have a really hard time buttoning shirts with this precious Kristen patience/attention disorder.  Seriously.  I think this was my third attempt, and each one before it turned out exactly the same.  After awhile, I finally SLOWED DOWN and started at the bottom.  (Right about the time we were leaving the place.)

Yours, truly.  (sigh) Still so clueless sometimes.  Clueless and/or impatient.

Matt and I ended the date with a little celebration of him by, naturally, doing something I wanted to do.  I found a free bike program and we headed to Gulf Shores State Park.  I wish we'd had more time and energy.  I probably picked the worst section of the trail - I mean, the bridge looked like so much fun, but it was a difficult ride!!  And mostly by the highway.  So, we went a "back way" to avoid the bridges and ended up riding the majority of the way back through a camp ground.  Not exactly my idea of a "scenic ride", but we rode 20 miles together and got to see a tiny little alligator in the wild on the way home.  So, again...I'm choosing to call this a win. 

We had a bummer rain out the next day.  Let's talk about that...  It is, APPARENTLY, very hard to predict the weather in Gulf Shores.  WARNING: every day your weather app will say "it's going to rain all day long and there is a rip tide warning."  So...don't get out.  Don't go to the beach!!  

As it turns out, it does rain some of those days, but most of them are just fine.  I honestly don't know what you are supposed to believe.  Therefore, I just started assuming the best. You remember what they say about ASSUME, right?

It's a LOT easier to enjoy myself in the context of family, now that I am more comfortable within myself.  Counseling is good.  I don't care what the naysayers think.

Suffice it to say, our zoo trip didn't work out.  It really WAS going to rain all day this time.  I was definitely wrong.

Fortunately, for me, we ended up stopping at the outlet mall nearby.  We geeked out at the Play and Talk in Tangers, Foley.  I got to play a totally rigged claw machine, but I don't consider it a waste of my $5.  (I LOVE claw machines.  I can hardly ever resist one.  I can't explain...but kind of, I can.). We walked down one strip, and I found a Carter's store my kids begged me NOT to enter.  (Jealous much???) I most definitely did. (And the party poopers gave me just barely enough time to buy a little something for all the precious babies in my life.). 

Unfortunately, in all the excitement of picking out things for babies, I left my water bottle behind.  Fortunately, I Amazon-ed myself the PERFECT replacement to greet me when I got home.  So....BABIES!!!!!

I couldn't have been more content with our back up plan.  Everyone was happy, and we had a really lovely evening back at the house.

The biggest alligator in the feeding we attended.  So much fun!!


And then came the last day...a bit of a crazy, muddled mess.  (But I went to work to paste it all together into what I considered a beautiful collage.)

Unfortunately, it looks like we are going to head into Friday, and I don't even like the first song that comes to mind (I stand AGAINST that frame of thinking.  I need love ALL days of the week.) And I won't even mention Matt's opinion of The Cure.  So...maybe I'll do some research and find another title???

The end...for now.


But...can we PLEASE, just once, NOT with the 10 hour security check before every stinking event???  😂
(He takes good care of us.  Happy Father's Day to Matt! 🙌)


💗 😂😂Kristen

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