Comfort in the Discomfort

Before I moved here, I heard stories of these parties or visits that would last hours and hours, and my first thought was always, “I’ll never survive.” Seriously, that sounded like a really bad dream. How could you possibly sit in a room for hours upon hours, drinking tea and speaking a different language?! And yet, that has become a reality and one that I have come to not just survive, but enjoy.

This, beingcomfortableintheultimatediscomfort, seems to be the theme of my life for the last couple of years. Also, the idea of comfortable is so relative, isn’t it?! I sometimes look at my life and think, “if this were happening to me in America, I would be SO UNCOMFORTABLE! Never, would I Ever!” And yet, I tend to live so out of comfort that there is no box for what “comfort” should be. Case in point, This baby party I went to the other day. I’ll just give you a play by play.

If you follow me on instagram, you will know that I was invited to a baby party (basically a baby shower, but after the baby is born) last week. I was going on day 3 of single-parenting, day 2 of potty training Hannah, and it was at 5:30 on a Thursday evening (dinner time after a long day at school for the big kids). If I’m honest, I decided to go because there would be free food and I was too lazy to cook. 🙂

I knew this party was going to be a late one. But like I’ve said, I’ve gotten used to hours and hours of sitting. So picture this: I walk into a room FULL of beautifully dressed woman (who have obviously spent a good portion of the day getting ready), a band is playing over a loud speaker (so loud my kids covered their ears the whole time), people are dancing and here I am with my brood of crazies, a too-big long skirt, grey shirt and cardigan, and my needstobewashed hair in a bun. I know 1 person in the entire room, and I am the only foreigner. If I actually took a second to step out of my life for a second, I’m not sure it could get any more uncomfortable.

Let’s just say that when I lived in America I was not quick to put myself in situations where I would be out of place. I liked to know my surroundings and the people who were going to be a part of them. I was very very rarely the “new” girl in anything. My family had lived in my town for 5 generations, I went to the same school for 13 years, there was never really anything “new” about me or my life. Even when I went to college, I roomed with my friend from high school and slowly worked up the nerve to have conversations with people I didn’t know. I don’t think anyone would have pegged me as a “shy” person, per se, but I have always dealt with debilitating insecurity that kept me from doing things that were out of my beautiful comfort zone. And then years later, I was lovingly pulled away from “normalcy” and “comfort” into this crazy neverincontrol life.

And yet this crazy life, this “new girl” thing has become my normal, everyday life and I have learned to love it. Somehow, the sitting for hours and the only-white girl and the crazy kids and the trying to speak a different language and the trying to dance but looking like a fool, has become my normal and I don’t just love it, but in the midst of it I’m so full of JOY I’m brought to tears. (just so you know, there are also been plenty of times that I am brought to tears because I’m so overwhelmed with the fact that I can’t speak the language, know the culture, made a fool of myself, etc…It’s not always a huge joy party…but I try to hold onto the joy moments, so that it’s easier to keep going in the  ijustwanttocrawlinahole moments.)

So I think my definition of a “Good” Party is really different then it was a couple of years ago. Yes, we sat a lot and yes, we were there for 4 hours before we actually ate dinner and yes, my kids’ bedtime was 10:30 that night, but somehow the fact that I should have been uncomfortable, but wasn’t, made it the best party I’ve ever been too. Oh and the dancing the night away was pretty awesome too!

(Just in case you want to see what a typical party is like, I took a little video so you can experience it!)

Baby Party

Ode to My Buta Gas Tank

Dear Buta Gas Tank,

Usually I am a big fan of you. You allow me to make food for my family, have a hot shower and most importantly, make coffee in the morning. But every once in awhile, you make me so crazy I could lose my mind. I just have one question for you. Why do you ALWAYS wait until my husband is traveling to run out of gas? It never fails. It’s as if you two made a funny little pact and set up a little camera to see how well I would react. Do you know how unfunny it is to haul 3 kids to the store in order to drag your 75 lbs self back to my house by myself? And then, once my nerves are pretty much completely fried, you except me to unhook the empty one and attach another one to my stove. Do you know that this takes almost superhuman strength? Why, you ask, little buta tank? Because if I don’t hook it up correctly and it is leaking, there is a chance it will explode and set our house on fire. I can’t really handle that type of pressure in my life. I have way bigger fish to fry; my kids just poured milk all over the floor.

I don’t want to be mean and I know I shouldn’t bite the hand that feeds me, but please please be more considerate next time.

Love Always,

Jackie

P.S. I have to say that a little part of my thanks you, because I now have a legitimate excuse to eat out for the next 2 nights.

Barcelona

It’s been almost 2 weeks since we returned from Barcelona, I think it’s about time I posted some pictures.  We are so thankful that we have the opportunity to travel every once in awhile. When we first moved here, we had to leave the country every 3 months for Visa reasons, and while we don’t have to do that anymore, I still get that itch every 3 months to change surroundings, get a breath a fresh air, and then return refreshed. I count it a huge blessing and privilege to live overseas and among such wonderful people, but it can be stressful and exhausting and sometimes we just plain need a break. So I’m also thankful (again) for RyanAir for inexpensive flights, so we can travel as a family for relatively cheap.

Because this season of life can be so tiring with little kids, my motto is usually, “If what I’m going to do is more exhausting then just entertaining my kids at home, you will probably find me at home.” But somehow traveling with three littles has almost become easier then taking them to the park. Jay and I have become a well-oiled machine. It’s basically me and the kids, and Jay and the important documents. I don’t think I ever touch a passport when we travel. Honestly, I don’t trust myself. (I would probably set them down somewhere while I was telling Cole not to scale the counters in the airport and forget to pick them back up.)

We also rent an apartment in the city we are going to as opposed to a hotel room. Before we moved overseas, I had never heard of such a thing. But it is usually way cheaper, and way more convenient for a family of 5. The apartment we rented had 2 bedrooms, bathroom, a full kitchen and a living room. So we only ate out 2x, because I could cook everything at home and we could make sandwiches for our lunches when we were out and about. (the website we usually use is www.homeaway.com) I would encourage you to look up something like that the next time you are traveling! (there are places all over the US too!)

Anyway, onto the pictures. (If you follow me on instagram, some of these will look familiar!)

 We told the kids they had to ride in the luggage part of the bus from the airport into the city, and they believed us. 🙂

My Sweet girls. I’m planning on them always thinking I’m a cool. (at least I can pretend, right?!)

McDonalds breakfast. You can say what you want, but there is no other breakfast like it.

Movie Time! There is a movie theater that shows Original Version movies a couple of days a week!

We tried to be as American as possible. 🙂 Dunkin Donuts.

We went to the zoo, the aquarium, the science museum, but all my kids really wanted to do all day, everyday was chase/feed the pigeons. I was just waiting to get pooped on. Anyone else think birds are weird and gross?! Obviously not my kids.

This picture pretty accurately describes my three. Hannah, aka. squishy face is always goofy and laughing. Lydia, aka. the responsible oldest is always making sure everyone is ok and obeying. Cole, aka. the eater is always hungry and begging for food. ALWAYS.

 A boat picture for Uncle Joel.

 Another Uncle Joel boat picture.

Aquarium!

Oh Jay and the sun fish. His new love.

We are not normal. It’s what happens when your dad is awesome and creative.

(I put this on instagram, so sorry if you’re reading it again) I really toiled over which kind of mom I wanted to be when traveling. Did I want to be the chic, boot-wearing European mom, or the sporty, practical “i’mgoingtobechasingthreekidsaround” tennis shoe kind of mom?! I brought both, and let’s just say I wore my boots once and thought I was going to die. My feet and back hurt so bad. I have never been more proud to be a tennis shoe wearing, non-trendy mom. That whole fashion over comfort thing is way overrated in my book. 🙂

Who knew that a swing set could bring so much joy?! to both the kids swinging, and the parents sitting on a bench drinking Starbucks.

One of the coolest things we saw. Every Sunday afternoon, this orchestra performs outside of one of the main cathedrals, and the crowds of people form circles, join hands and start dancing traditional spanish dances. It was amazing.

Thank you Barcelona for giving this crazy family some relaxation and fun!

New Hidden Treasure

Ever since we moved here, I have found a love for finding hidden treasures. I think it was probably the 2 years we were car-less. Our first of the 2 years we lived in a car-free,  walled city (yes walled – it was pretty cool), and since I had 2 little children and it was an uphill walk to get a taxi outside the walls; I rarely went out (usually once a week). It wasn’t really that big of a deal because everything I really needed I could find in the city – food, cleaning stuff, laundry detergent – the basics. But there were some main things I always stocked up on when I did my 1x a month grocery store run – real butter and  mozzarella cheese  and oats – were the important ones. It did save us a lot of money!

But every once in awhile, as I was shopping inside the walls,  I would spot a “hidden treasure”. A bottle of heinz ketchup, regular (not dijon) mustard, a guy selling mozzarella cheese, some guy selling raspberries. And it felt like I had won the lottery.

So when we moved to a new city and lived across the street from a grocery store, I was still determined to “buy local” and continue to find my “hidden treasures”. It is so much fun and there is so much satisfaction in finding out that the guy that sells honey across the street also sells homemade natural peanut butter! Those kind of things are priceless! And it’s great when you find a hidden treasure and you can share it with the other foreigners (who also think that it is amazing to find canned black beans! It’s the little things, friends!).

Anyway, my newest hidden treasure is probably the most random I have found yet. It’s not a foreign item, and it’s not exactly what it is, but how it is sold.

Trash Bags. I now have a trash bag guy (he also sells laundry detergent by the scoop full). And he sells trash bags by the kilo. Yes, Kilo. He literally grabs handfuls, puts them on the scale until it says 1 kilos. I hand him $1.25 and walk away with who knows how many trash bags.

It’s the little things that make my life random and amazing. 🙂

Cactus as a Heart Thermometer

Welcome to our cul-de-sac. Let’s start out with some thankfulness, shall we?! I love that we live in a cul-de-sac. It is incredibly rare where we live to have anything like this – not a lot of traffic, pretty quiet, and lots of kids. But there is one thing that on really bad days make me want to pack my bags and go home. Know what it is?! Cactus! On the perimeter of that entire island there is cactus. I cannot tell you how many times I have stepped on, been poked, and/or bled because of it. You’re probably thinking, “Oh Jackie, you are being extreme. You wouldn’t really pack your bags and go home because of cactus.” But this is the side of living overseas that no one really talks about. The little, inanimate things that can make it or break it depending on the day. And because the cactus usually interfere with trying to get my kids into the car and to school on time, It takes everything in me not to yell, “Forget It!”. When I have to buckle one kid in, and then get in the drivers seat to pull away from the curb (the CACTUS!) in order to get back out and buckle the other kid in on the other side of the car, when we are already rushing to get there on time, it would make you want to lose your mind.

It’s not like this everyday, of course. But, you know those days where it’s 8am and you feel like you should probably go back to bed, and start your day again in a couple of hours?! That’s when it feels like the cactus are out to get you! (As I’m typing this, I’m realizing that I probably need some help as I’m thinking that inanimate objects are trying to orchestrate my demise!)

I’m sure people deal with these same kinds of things living in their home culture. (It’s probably a lego left on the floor and stepped on in the middle of the night!). I’m just amazed at how something as crazy as a cactus can show me the status of my heart on any given day. When we were in the process of moving here, we had a friend describe to us that going overseas can sometimes be like you are a tea bag put in a cup of extremely hot water and you get the opportunity to see what is really in the “teabag” of your heart. Oh Man, has THAT ever been the truth. Living overseas for me has been one cup of hot water after another. New Language, hot water. New Culture, hot water. Little kids, hot water. I thought that maybe after 3.5 years the water might start to cool off a little, but I don’t think that is really how this life works. There is ALWAYS more in my heart to deal with. Cactus, more hot water, more heart thermometer. More to examine, work through, apologize for. I’m learning, probably slower then my husband or children would like, but I’m learning. Even if cactus are the learning tool. 🙂

But as the picture attests to, I’m thankful for a husband who is willing to lessen the cactus curriculum by taking a rainy saturday morning to use a shovel as a machete and go to town demolishing  those suckers. 🙂

London

Ohh London. Where to even begin? Lydia and I just got back from an amazing 3 days of plays, movies, cupcakes, royal palaces, and lots of bonding. This trip came about from a need for a break (that is another post for another day), and the fact that my baby girl is turning 6 in a month. When I was 6, my parents took me to see my first musical (Cats) and I think it was the beginning of a life long love of musicals and theater. I can distinctly remember sitting on the middle hump of the backseat of my Dad’s honda accord on a special surprise night. I don’t remember a lot from my younger years, but that is burned into my memory. I would love for my daughter to have the same love, but the lack of options here can make those loves kind of hard. So a trip to London was a must!! You are probably thinking, “wow! that’s pretty extravagant for a 6 year olds birthday.” And yes, it would be, if not for cheap European airlines (Thanks RyanAir!). Let’s just say, it would cost more to get from Lynchburg, Va to NYC on the train to see a Broadway show, then it did for us to fly to London. It cost $170 bucks. Round trip. For BOTH of us. A Huge blessing. We stayed with friends in the city, bought day passes for the underground and saw almost everything there is to see. The 2 big parts of the trip was the movie Frozen (in English!) and The musical Wicked; they did not disappoint.
One of the nicest things for me was the jump from 3rd/2nd world to 1st world in a matter of 3 hours. If you have lived overseas for any period of time, you will know the feeling of going to a place where there is customer service, people are helpful and friendly, using a debit/credit card everywhere, and everything working. As much as I love where I live, it is nice to go to a place where things are convenient, easy, and can be relied upon. For instance, on our way to see Frozen, my 1st thought was, “what if it doesn’t work? The website said it was showing but what if it isn’t?” I had to remind myself, “This is the UK. If it says it’s there, it’s there. No need to worry.” It is amazing the little things I used to take for granted that are now luxuries. 🙂

Anyway….onto the pictures!

On Our Way!

Jay has been reading the Narnia Series to Lydia and she was so happy to see Turkish Delights in the grocery store. We had to try them, of course!

Frozen!!!

We had some friends join us for our first day in the city. It was great to catch up with them and they were so nice to be our tour guides.

Big Ben!

Of Course, we had to see where the princess wedding was!

Buckingham Palace

 Tower Bridge

On day 2, we decided to check out the Natural History Museum because Lydia wanted to take pictures for Cole. Through the whole museum she kept saying, “Oh mommy, Cole would love this.”

Thanks to a recommendation (Thanks El!), we went to the cutest little cupcake shop in Covent Garden, The Primrose Bakery. By the way, Covent Garden was by far my favorite part of London. Cute little shops and restaurants and didn’t seem overly crowded.

For someone whose New Years resolution was to look more presentable more often (by using makeup more then once a week), I seem to own a lot of MAC makeup. I went through a MAC stage, and since then, I’ve always been drawn to their makeup. We found a store and decided to get mini-makeovers before we went to the play.

Our last stop before the play was Hamley’s Toy Store. This is no ordinary toy store. It was basically a toy department store. 5 Floors. 5. It was amazing. And the best part was that on every floor they were doing about 5 different toy demonstrations. (Like Sam’s Club sample booths, but toys. 🙂 ) So we just wandered around, stopping at booths and checking out what they had. Lydia drew pictures, got her nails painted and saw a magic show. Can’t beat that.

We love the Underground!!!

We ended our time by seeing Wicked. It was amazing. There really are no words. I was pretty sure I would cry through the whole show, but I managed to keep it together pretty well.

The trip really did contain planes, trains and automobiles, as our airport was about an hour north of the city. So it made for a short night when our show didn’t end until 10:30 in the city and we had to catch a train to the airport that took about an hour, slept in a hotel for about 4 hours and then walked to the airport at 5 am. It definitely called for a venti starbucks and I savored that drink all the way back here!

 

 

 

 

Turkey Drama

Ok, stick with me because in my head this post is hilarious. 🙂 It would actually be better if I could take a little video and recreate the whole adventure, but I will do my best with words.

So I need to give a little back ground on this story and tell a quick story about our 1st Thanksgiving here. We were living in the old walled city with no car. So our only mode of transport was a taxi, which was a 10 minute walk up hill and outside the city walls. NOT FUN with 2 little kids, so needless to say, we didn’t get out but once a week. (It wasn’t really prison, although sometimes it felt like it! Not gonna lie.) So I decided that we would be cultural and buy our turkey from the local turkey guy which was right around the corner. I went there, he showed me the “turkeys”, we negotiated the price and off I went with my “turkey”. All this time Jay is looking at this “turkey” with webbed feet, and trying to be supportive while knowing his sweet wife just got completely taken because she speaks very little arabic and this guy is laughing himself all the way to the bank with $25. Once Jay finally convinced me that it was absolutely NOT a turkey with webbed feet (no, Jackie, just because we are in a different country, does not mean the turkeys look different), I tried to take it back, with no luck and ended up putting our duck in the freezer and saving it for Christmas. (It was disgusting by then, and we still didn’t eat it. $25 down the drain, but a valuable lesson learned.)

So fast forward 3 years, we are now buying our Thanksgiving turkey from the local grocery store. So I go there on a Saturday to order my turkey, and tell them I will return on Wednesday afternoon to pick it up. Wednesday afternoon, I pick up my hyper kids from school and head to the store to pick up the turkey around 4. I grab a few things, head to the turkey counter, talk to the butcher…NO TURKEY. It is not the same butcher I talked to on Saturday. I asked to talk to THAT guy, so I can calmly (not yet panickly) explain to him the importance of having my turkey at that very moment. He is not there, and won’t be coming for another half an hr. So…what does a completely sane person do that desperately needs a turkey? I ask for his phone number. So there I am, in the produce section, while my kids are taking people out with the shopping cart, trying to explain to this guy, in arabic, why this turkey (for a holiday they know nothing about) is so important and why I need it TODAY. No luck, just keeps saying that they forgot to bring it and maybe by thursday they could get one. Ok, don’t panic, get creative.

So then I head to my turkey guy (who I should have gone to in the first place) and try and explain the severity of the situation. Let me set the scene for you. His shop is right on the street. So I park my car on the street outside and walk up to the counter. It is now 5:00. I have 2 hyper children who are supposed to be nicely sitting in the car, but in reality have rolled the windows down and are hanging out the windows of the parked car yelling “HALLELUJAH” at the people who walk by. Me, standing at the counter , trying to explain in Arabic, AGAIN, about the importance of this holiday and the turkey and why we celebrate it in the first place. My turkey guy (Bless Him!) is calling every friend he has in the city asking them to find him a turkey, bring it to him (alive), so he can butcher it for me, in the next hour. In the middle of all this chaos, a car and a motorcyle collide right next to us in the street. The motorcyclist flips onto the hood of the car and now there is a crowd. Great. TG (Turkey guy) finds one, but it’s across town. So I call Jay and ask him if he would be willing to drive to the other side of town, pick up a live turkey, put it in our car and drive it to our TG so he can butcher it. Jay doesn’t really feel like this even warrants an answer, because “no”, crazy wife(That’s what he is thinking), “I am not going to drive, during rush hour, to the other side of town to put a live turkey in my car. Bad idea”. Thankfully TG finds someone to bring it to him, and tells me to return the next day at noon. So, at noon the next day I show up, and he hands me my 17 KILOS turkey (39 lbs!!!). This is the smallest one he could find. “To your health and happiness”, he says to me as I walk away. Now I am having slight anxiety about fitting this monstrosity in my oven. Here is what we were working with:

This thing was huge. It barely fit in the oven, and I didn’t have a pan big enough. Someone mentioned sending it to the local bread oven to have it cook there, but that was a risk we weren’t willing to take. Jay finally had the brilliant idea of getting it cut in half, cooking half, and saving the rest for later. Brilliant! So after nap time, I loaded the kids and the turkey in the stroller (it was the size of a small child anyway)

walked to the TG, explained in arabic to more people, AGAIN, about why we celebrate this holiday and the turkey drama. Finally, 24 hrs after the turkey drama ensued, panic attack over, I was home and content with my 17 lbs half turkey. And the next day, it was delicious.

The moral of the story?! Always talk to the turkey guy first, or if you don’t have a turkey guy or can’t get a turkey, just eat pumpkin pie, be thankful and call it a day.

Keeping It Real

My sweet girl turned into block maniac today.

A lot of times I read blogs and they will tell a story about a hard time they had or how they struggled with their kids, etc. but at the end it is usually tied up in a little bow and they learned a really valuable lesson. (Probably mine included). This is not me today.

I’m just going to be honest and say that this season of life feels like a never ending, scream fest where someone is always crying, whining or fighting and I’m in the kitchen washing my everyday load of pee-soaked sheets and preparing something for my starving son who won’t stop eating.

I’m going on day 2 of being sick and for some reason Hannah chose today to start her first stubborn battle over blocks. Blocks?!?! Why?!? Maybe it was exhaustion, since everyone decided that 5 am was an acceptable time to wake up. Whatever the reason, today is not a victory day. There are just those days.

Jay and I listened to this podcast the other day about courage in the everyday. I knew he was about to reference that podcast today when he saw me crying in the kitchen. And all I could say to him was, “don’t encourage me with that podcast, it’s stupid.” ( it isn’t really, you should listen to it. But all I could muster was honesty at that point.)

Anyway, all that to say. This is where i am today. Hopefully tomorrow will be different, but maybe not. I’m not really sure what I need. Maybe just a little bit of, “my kid does the same thing, all the freaking time.” Or maybe some ideas of how to keep my 4 year old from asking for food every 3 seconds.

But hopefully, maybe there is just a little bit of grace in honesty for that person who is also dragging themselves through today. I’m with ya!

Chicken Mhamar

One thing I love about this place are their celebrations! There is always something to celebrate, and always a reason to get together and eat. Love it!! Actually one of my first memories of living here was a somewhat random invitation to a neighbor’s henna party. Why were they having a henna party?!? No reason at all! Just a way to be together and do something fun. My heart loves that kind of stuff. Celebration is so important.

Anyway, another way they celebrate is with food. Lots and Lots of food. And just like our Thanksgiving, where the food is always the same ( at least the basic, important ones!), each different party or celebration has the same foods associated with it. One of these is a Saboueh. A Saboueh is basically a baby shower, but 7 days after the baby is born, and usually not less then 100 people. We all crowd into a room, greet and congratulate the new mom, and then eat chicken Mhamar and beef and prunes tagine to our hearts contentment. I have always loved going to these parties because these two dishes are probably my most favorite local food. 🙂

So we set off to make so I didn’t have to wait until another party to eat what I love!!

Here are the ingredients:

1 chicken cut into pieces
1 tsp ginger
A bunch of cilantro tied together
4 cloves of garlic, minced
A strand of saffron
1 tsp salt
2 large onions, sliced
Olive oil
1/2 cup water
1/4 of a preserved lemon in slices (use the skin of all the pieces and the inside of just one piece.)
(There is something here called smen that they often use in cooking. It is basically fermented butter, but a tiny bit gives the dish a fuller flavor. I would just use a little bit of butter in place of it. Maybe 1 tbl added in while the chicken is cooking)

So just to give you a little insight into life and cooking here, I have to tell you about cooking with whole chickens. Since I knew I would be cooking with my friend on Thursday, I had to buy the chicken on Wednesday from my chicken guy.

Then I washed it with water and trimmed it up a little and rubbed it with lemon and salt so it could sit in my fridge overnight.

Ok, so now let’s get to cooking!

Put the sliced onions, chicken, spices and water in a pot over medium heat. Allow this to cook until the chicken is tender, about 30 minutes or so.

When the chicken is done. Remove it, leaving the sauce in the pot. Place the chicken in a 9×13 pan. Mix together the softened butter with 1 string of saffron and spread generously over the pieces of chicken.

Before you put the chicken in the oven to brown, add the preserved lemon pieces to the sauce pot and cook over low heat.

Put the chicken under the broiler until the chicken is browned and crisp.

When the chicken is finished, place in a deep dish and pour the sauce over top.

Full disclosure: this is how we ate this dish after a particularly busy day and single-momming it for days on end.

There is nothing quite like a tagine picnic (on the floor, in front of the tv) and when you all eat out of one pot, there are no dishes to do. AND my kids were so excited to eat a tagine that there was no complaining about dinner (which seems to be a rare occurrence these days!)

A win, all the way around.

Changing the Weather

So, we’ve had a lot of “daddy” away time lately. Usually that means we hunker down, do the daily routine of kids to school, market shopping, visiting and then surviving the last couple of hours before it’s bed time. One of these weeks happened to be while the kids were off of school for the Eid (that I posted about). 5 days, Jay gone, everyone home, and all of their friends were busy and/or traveling for the holiday. I had a minor panic attack and then got to planning our own little getaway.

Jay was biking the coast of this country with my brother and were planning to finish their 3 day trek in a beautiful little coastal town. I encouraged (or actually kinda begged) some friends to come with us and share this beautiful 4 bedroom house I rented for $60 dollars a night (YES $60! We are very blessed to be able to get away for so little!). And we could let the kids enjoy a little time off of school at the beach. There is a really appropriate phrase we use here when we are just getting away:  “changing the weather”. It very appropriately states the feeling when you are doing something or going somewhere to just take a break from the normal! That’s exactly what we needed!

So we went, and we played, and we ate yummy cheeseburgers and we welcomed Jay and my brother back from their awesome bike ride! It was a blast!