Family vacation (Gulf Shores, AL)

Last week, we took a family beach vacation to Gulf Shores, AL. And when I say family, I mean the entire family... from Lynn's side (my in-laws). For 6 nights, we had 29 people under one roof... And we were still missing a few people!

On paper, it sounds daunting but my aunts and mother-in-law had it under control. There was a lot of planning prior, from who's bring what to setting a daily menu... from breakfast to dinner. Even though one family would be responsible for one day of cooking, it seemed like they were always in the kitchen... helping, prepping, cleaning, etc. Hopefully they were able to enjoy themselves, to relax and make it an actual vacation.

By the second day, I was content. There's only so much you can do on the beach. And I was a bit defeated when I lost two canopies. Our big canopy was broken on the first day when a sudden storm with strong winds blew through. Then a few days later, my aunt's big canopy flew into my personal canopy, destroying both. This beach kicked my ass. 😑

Father's Day(s)

Since we have a lot of dads in our lives, we celebrated Father's Day early on various days prior to Sunday.

This week...10+ years ago

Since there's not much going on right now (pandemic yet to be over), I thought I'd reminisce. The Google Photos app has a feature called Memories that shows highlights from the same week, x years ago.

Below are pictures taken in June, starting in 2010 (before this blog started) and beyond.

Let's take a trip down memory lane.

My little artists

Andrew's current interest is sport/racing cars and he's been on a streak of drawing cars. To do so, he looks up pictures on the internet and draws with his laptop beside him. His pictures are really good.

Elliot (being the impressionable 4 year old) had to do the same. And her drawing was of her current interest... Disney's Frozen. The resemblance is uncanny!

Pandemic

The pandemic is over!

Memorial Day

Oh, Elliot...

Jacob is taller than me!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day!

"Celebrating" birthdays

The current pandemic doesn't allow for any group gatherings so how did we celebrate the April birthdays?

What day is it?

Groundhog Day (1993)

COVID-19 and cooking

Easter egg hunt (at home)

This year was the first Easter that we didn't spend with family since... hmmm. I honestly don't remember the last time we weren't together on Easter Sunday because it probably never happened. And it's been tradition to have an annual egg hunt for the younger kids but sadly, COVID-19 came into the world. But I wasn't going to let a virus deny the kids of an egg hunt.

COVID-19 and April

COVID-19 and social distancing

COVID-19 and toilet paper

As mentioned on the previous post, we were out of town for Spring Break and that's when things started to get "crazy". Cases of COVID-19 started to increase and people began to panic buy. Hand sanitizer was already hard to find (understandable) but toilet paper was impossible to come by. For the life of me, I will never understand why. Why would people hoard toilet paper during a pandemic? And it just so happen that our supply was low before we left for our vacation (only 3 rolls left).