However, I knew we had a big light at the end of the tunnel -- a light that was reflecting an immediate result and another that's 6 months (more or less) in the future...the beach...and a new house. And since the new house is farther away, we were all looking forward to the relaxation that only the beach can provide. I should say that we were also celebrating Scotty's 32nd birthday by going to the beach. But let's back up a little.
Packing up to move and the actual move itself were not fun. At all. The silver lining there was that we'd hired movers who were a tremendous help. And although I don't anticipate any additional moves in the next 15-20 years (I hope) once we move to our next house, we will absolutely hire movers anytime something of this magnitude has to be done. Scotty and I spent the better part of the week before packing and sorting and taping and taking what we could to the apartment before Moving Day. And I think the movers appreciated the extra help. Little did they know we weren't trying to help them out but trying to get the job done as quickly as possible since we were being charged by the trip (it took 2), and by the minute (it took about 4.5 hours). Good times. Once the stuff we needed was in the new abode, and the crap we didn't in storage, we began the unpacking process, which we'd been trying to do along the way to make the job easier on ourselves. Two weeks later, we still have a couple of boxes of stuff in our closet, but everything else is put away. So following moving weekend, we had closing day the next week, followed by beach vacation which began mid-way through the following week.
As always, we had a great time in Orange Beach. Mimi (Debbie) and Mamaw (Mamaw) joined us since we were also celebrating Scotty's aforementioned birthday, which they were obviously present for 32 years prior. His actual birthday was the day we left, Wednesday, but it was an extended celebration and the cookie cake and chocolate cake and eating dinner out (or steaks in!) lasted the whole stay. Besides beach time, we went to The Track where DS got to experience his first go-kart ride (he says he loved it, but you couldn't tell from his expression). DS loved the pools. The problem was that the water was quite frigid. The weather was perfect, though, and we had a good breeze most of the time. We also went crab hunting the night we cooked out at the condo. We ended up catching only one crab. But, we also found a neat sea thing which was later determined to be a whelk egg case -- incubator for predatory snail babies. We left it on the beach (I think), b/c it kind of grossed us all out once we knew what it was. And now we're on our way back home...to our cozy apartment...counting down the days til we get to go back to the beach.
PS -- For posterity purposes, I'd started this post on 4/21 hence the date. I finished/published it on 4/29. I've got to figure out a different system for this b/c my pictures and the funky date issue are annoying me. Also, happy 6 months to my sweet nephew, Anders, who had a birthday yesterday.
