Category: life events

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Only Hope

The almond tree….. “It’s aliiiiiiiiiivvveee!!!”

I’ve got some time on my hands, as as mental health professionals suggest journaling, I may as well keep posting here, right?

Classes “resumed” this week for me, so I’m trying to get in communication with my students. I’ve only heard from a few of them at this point, which isn’t too surprising, but it’s a substantially different dynamic compared with what I’m used to. I’m hosting virtual office hours five times a week now, though I haven’t actually had anyone join yet. I’ve got my first committee meeting today, so it’ll be my first non-email communication with folks at the college in a bit.

The kids, on the other hand, are generally enjoying their new reality. Brooke’s still setting up a checklist for them that gives them something to do everyday, along with a little bit of variety in the daily routine. Animal Crossing came out last Friday, which Meg’s been looking forward to since last Fall, so it’s been a welcome diversion from everything that’s been going on. Thankfully, there’s a co-op mode to it so Calvin can play along simultaneously.

Brooke started her new schedule at work this week. Right now, they’re going to remain open, but have rearranged their consumers for isolation protocols so it’s easier to separate those that may have been exposed, should that happen eventually… As of today, there are no cases in Saline County, but Columbia and Kansas City both have multiple cases. As of yesterday, there were 183 confirmed cases in Missouri, almost half of which were in people under the age of 50.

On Saturday, I took a trip into Columbia to donate blood, as the Red Cross is canceling blood drives all over the place now. I dropped some stuff off at Goodwill to clear out space for the next remodel… We were planning on separating the kids into their own rooms this year anyway, so we’ve just pushed up the schedule on that now that time is seemingly more available… Brooke and Meg spent quite a bit of time this weekend organizing their toys, moving some of it up into the attic and getting rid of other bits. I also brought back some old bed frames from when my grandfather and great-uncle were growing up, so we’re hoping to restore those and put them in Meg’s room, depending on how they fit in the space.

Then again, if Lowes closes and we can’t buy paint for the bed frames, we’ll be slowed down considerably…

Aaaaaaaanyway, I’m catching up on TV, keeping up on school stuff, and otherwise trying to entertain myself. The weather is improving, though it’s been pretty rainy. We’ve had at least 4″ of rain in the last week, kinda spread out over the days. Temperatures should reach into the 60s later this week, so hopefully things dry out a bit! The kids really need to get outside more…

Brooke and I are watching This Old House every night now, trying to watch happy, positive stuff. Also, Jon Foreman is recording and performing a new song every day on YouTube.

At least the trees are getting their leaves back, right?

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It’s Been A Minute…

Whee! Playing outside finally!

It isn’t that there hasn’t been much going on…but most of what the last few months has entailed was routine. We had Christmas Break, started the Spring Semester, had a bunch of snow days (like, one per week, almost literally…), and now I’m on Spring Break…but more on that later…

Probably the biggest thing that’s happened was Meg’s 10th birthday. It’s crazy to think that it’s been 10 years since she joined the family! We had a small gathering for some of her friends after school last Friday, and keeping 4 fourth graders entertained for 5 hours is certainly a challenge…

Speaking of Spring Break, I’ve gotten a few short-ish bike rides in, some running, some prep work for the rest of the semester, and a few other odds and ends done. Mostly, I’ve just been chillin’ around the house. The weather has been up and down (because Missouri), but we’ve had a few days in the past couple of weeks where we’ve hit the mid-60s or low-70s, so we’ve had a taste of Spring and are ready for it. Brooke even got her annual “burning of the garden” done! Of course, there’s a chance of snow tomorrow…because…Missouri….

The big news has been developing over the past few weeks. As you, dear reader, undoubtedly know by now, the world has been rocked by the novel coronavirus. Incidentally, Calvin, Brooke and I were struck with influenza a few weeks ago, so we’ve already had a run-in with sickness this year (yes, we had our flu shots…), but this coronavirus is a different situation.

So different that Missouri Valley has decided, along with many other colleges, to shut down in-person teaching for the foreseeable future. We’re on Spring Break, so students are already scattered all over the place. The administration took the logical step of delaying their return for an extra week, and gave them the option to choose to return if they want later in March. Buildings will be open, the dining hall will still function, dorms will be available….but we won’t hold any face-to-face classes.

For me, this isn’t going to be a tough transition. I already teach a few classes online, so I’ll just have to push a few buttons to move things over, in a few circumstances. For one of my classes, I’ll have to record some video lectures and think about how to assign a few “virtual laboratory” activities.

For other faculty, though, it’s going to be hard. Classes like chemistry, for example, aren’t easily switched to an online format. There are virtual solutions available, but not those that can be easily mobilized in a short time-frame with limited financial resources. I’ll probably have to help some of my colleagues come up with some solutions, but for some classes, there really isn’t a good option available.

So yeah, we chatted with the kids last night to explain that “things are going to look different” for a bit. I’ll go to work, but not on a regular schedule. They’re still going to school, so that routine hasn’t been affected….yet…. But we did have to tell them that they’ll have to be flexible and patient with what they’re used to getting from the grocery store. Supply chains have already been disrupted, so it’s at least possible that Meg won’t get her cheese crackers, or Calvin won’t get the exact frozen pizza he likes… It’s just hard to say whether groceries will be affected, or whether things will go “business as usual.” It just seems to be best to warn them so their frustration is at least slightly abated when things don’t happen the way they want… Right now, I don’t think they’re scared or anything, nor should they be, but I do want them to be prepared.

It’s gonna be weird! I’m not looking forward to exclusively online instruction, mostly because I actually like the interaction with students. Doing everything by email just isn’t the same… It’s better than spreading a virus to people more susceptible than us, though!

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Another Successful Half

So after I completed my first official half marathon last year, Adam, a buddy of mine from high school, asked if I’d run the Urban Bourbon Half Marathon in 2019 with him. Apparently he was supposed to run it with some co-workers a few years back and they “chickened out on him,” so he didn’t do it. So yeah, I agreed to do it, knowing I’d have months to work on it again, and it was conveniently also falling on my Fall Break again, giving me a Thursday and Friday off work so I could get to Louisville, KY.

Relative to last summer, my weekly running stats weren’t as impressive. I was running 40-something miles a week for a stretch there, but this summer, I struggled to hit 30 or 35 some weeks. As recently as a month ago, my left ankle started feeling less-than-stellar, prompting me to seriously investigate a new road bike so I could diversify my cardio training.

That said, I did run 13 mi lengths three times before running in Louisville, so I felt pretty confident I could pull it off, though I expected that my time may not be as good as last year (1:44:06 in Kansas City).

Adam and I left St. Louis and got to Louisville late afternoon on Friday, giving us plenty of time to meet up with a few of this co-workers, get to Louisville Slugger stadium to pick up our race information, and grab a bite to eat before trying to get some sleep.

Thankfully, this year’s race started at 8:00 am….though that was EDT, so it was really like 7:00 am CDT…which is the same time last year’s race started…figures…

There were 3065 runners, and by the time we got to the starting area, it was packed enough that we couldn’t work our way up to the correct pace group. I wanted to get up to the 1:50 pace runner, but got stuck back at 2:30, meaning I’d have to work my way around some folks. The temperature was 43 F, which was pretty solid, but I still wore light long-sleeves and pants, as well as light gloves.

Once the race started, I did my best to work around the folks in front of me. The road was relatively wide, so it wasn’t too hard to move through, but it still meant I had to sprint a bit more than I wanted to so early in the race. At points, I was running at 7:21/mi to get around people.

I felt pretty good throughout! The race route was pretty flat compared with Kansas City, with three somewhat large hills in the park that make up a third of the run. The hills were very gradual: up, then down…up, then down….up, then down… It made for a challenge, yet still better than the really large elevation change at the end of the KC route that ended with a large downhill to the finish line.

Again, though, I could feel that I was doing pretty well. I didn’t even look at my watch until I got to the end because I didn’t want to psych myself out. I’d passed the 1:50 pace runner a long time before and hadn’t seen them since, so I knew I was at least in the range of my time last year: I just wasn’t sure exactly how fast I was going.

I crossed the finish line with an official time of 1:41:01. I had shaved off 3 minutes and 5 seconds from my race last year. My final placement was 178 out of 3065 runners; I was 144 out of 1312 males; and I was 28 out of 208 males ages 35 to 39. Ultimately, it was way better than I expected going into the weekend! I was going to be happy if I was anywhere around last year’s time, but getting a new personal record was a pleasant surprise!

And my ankle didn’t feel like trash, either! 🙂

After the race was over, Louisville saw fit to grace us with bourbon tastings! Yay! They’ve got a pretty sweet venue downtown in Louisville that’s kinda indoor/outdoor in its setting, some bars and restaurants, and they had a stage set up for some live music. It got pretty tight for 3000+ people, but there weren’t crazy-long lines for the bourbon tasting. Each participant got to taste 4 bourbons, got a can of not-so-great beer, a slice of pizza, and some kinda soup called “burgoo.”

It ended up being a great weekend! It was awesome catching up with Adam, as it’s been quite a few years since we’d had a chance to talk at length. We’ve seen him a few times in recent years, but never for long enough that it felt like “old times.” It was good getting to walk around Louisville, get some awesome food (Turns out Brazilian steakhouses are awesome! Who know?!), and take a break from work for a bit.

I’m thinking I’m ready to attempt a full marathon next. If the opportunity to run another half comes up, I’d still do it, but I’m to the point now where I’m not going to blow through my 13.1 mi times much more than I already have without tearing something in my leg, so going “slower” and “steadier” may be the next step. I’m not sure I’ll do the 26.2 mi stretch next year or not: still need to work in all that training while having two young-ish kids around the house. I’ll probably stick to running more reasonable distances and start putting in long-distance bike riding to supplement. It’ll take awhile to work out good biking routes around here, so 2020 may just involve developing another skill set.

We’ll see! Until then, I’ll keep it up as long as I can.

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Oktoberfest 2019

Our weekends this Fall have been…nuts…to say the least. Thus, our weekends were difficult to schedule around, leaving October 12th as the only possibility. If the weather ended up being bad, we would have had to reschedule for the last weekend of October, which gets kinda risky.

Anyway, our preparations started the week before, as usual. At this point, we’ve got most everything down to a science, so pulling the bins down from the garage attic and making a list of food possibilities comes pretty easily. Sure, it’s still quite a bit of work to pull off (and having our parents come by helps tremendously!), but it isn’t as heavy a lift as it was the first few years we did this.

Thankfully, the weather held up pretty nicely! It was a bit windier than we preferred, but it was better than it was a few years ago. The temperature was also on the cool side (mid-50s?), but with the Sun out, it just felt like a lovely autumn day. Most of our 35 guests showed up in the 3:00 hour and stayed until dusk, leaving us to enjoy our fire into the evening.

This year, we added quite a few more Christmas lights (blue and white LEDs), as well as a corn hole set from Brooke’s work. She also brought the giant Jenga set home, too, which proved popular with the kids.

Ultimately, it was a great day! We’d be lying if we didn’t say we were happy when it was all over, as the month and a half leading up to Oktoberfest was crazy, but afterward, we could at least sigh and relax for a bit.

At least until the next weekend when I ran another half marathon…

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July 4th-ish in Hannibal

I’m still catching up on posting some stuff from the past few weeks because this summer has kinda gotten away from me!

As usual, we spent the July 4th weekend in Hannibal watching some mud volleyball and running in the Hannibal Cannibal. Brooke was able to get off work for the afternoon, so we made it there around 7:30, in time to watch Rachel and Jimmy play a round. The weather was actually surprisingly decent, for once, as the temp was a bit cooler than usual for July.

Another thing that wasn’t particularly “usual” is that Mark and Diana were gone to Alaska this year, so we had the house and swimming pool to ourselves. It made the logistics a little more complicated, in that we tried to be there for more games because they weren’t available to cheer for their daughters and son-in-law, but we navigated them as best we could. It really wasn’t that big a deal: we just coordinated who would bring which food items so we could have things like pulled pork or sloppy joes ready whenever folks would show up at the house. Win-win.

Overall, the mud volleyball aspect of the trip went well. Mallory was on one team while Rachel and Jimmy were on another. There wasn’t much overlap between them, so we got to see both teams play at separate times. They never ended up playing against each other, though that would have been fun to see!

In other news, I got a medal! Second place for my age group in the 10K race this year. I have run the 5K, 10K and 15K in the previous three years and found the most success in the 10K, likely because there’s more competition in the other distances. Still, I was pretty happy with my performance! Calvin did the fun run this year – Meg wasn’t particularly interested. He did well, too, in that he didn’t trip (other kids did)…

We also met up with Brooke’s friend from high school and her family for that Saturday afternoon. They set up a sweet zip line in an old machine shed, so we got to go back and forth multiple times. It got a little scary when the swing hit the end of the line, causing you to bump slightly into the wall, but it seemed relatively safe (so long as you wore a bike helmet). Calvin also had fun driving around on a “Power Wheels”-style Gator.

And last, but not least, we still took care of some fireworks. We got to see some big ones on the actual 4th of July holiday, but the kids didn’t get to do smoke bombs or sparklers, so we grabbed some of those and a few small fountains so they could shoot them off after a dip in the pool.

It was a fun weekend, as usual! Part of me wishes it was a little warmer for swimming, but the trade-off of sitting in ridiculous heat while watching mud volleyball isn’t particularly appealing… Next year, I suppose!

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A Trip to Table Rock Lake

My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary earlier this year, though the timing of it fell right before we went to Puerto Rico, and in the window after my sister had her second child. I guess they should have thought of that 40 years ago when they scheduled the wedding (“May used to be such a nice month!”).

My sister and I wanted to do something for them, and we proposed a few ideas, but the one they settled on was a weekend with the family together much like we did at Branson a few years ago. We poked around for some Airbnb options around Missouri on one of our various large lakes and ended up finding something on Table Rock Lake that fit the bill. It was further than we’d like to drive, as it took us 5 hrs to get there, but it was reasonably close to my sister’s family that included a newborn, so it was better for them.

By the way, this was back in late June and I’m catching up…sue me.

The house had a nice back porch and a really big yard that was right on the lake. It was pretty hot that weekend, so we didn’t spend a ton of time on the porch, but it was nice to have it in the morning, and to store all our outdoor stuff.

We originally thought about fishing, but the lake water level was up about 7 ft over where it was supposed to be (lots of flooding this year), so the water was up onto the shore…sans fish…

We did take the kayak along, and also bought an inflatable one so we could all head out together. Mom and Dad didn’t go, but Dad got quite a few pictures from shore, so I suspect that was good enough (also, Mom got to hold the baby, so I think she was satisfied!).

The kayak we got was missing some pieces, unfortunately. Two seats were supposed to be included and weren’t, as well as a piece on the bottom that was to help the kayak go in a straight line. As such, steering was rather difficult, and it was also hard to propel myself forward with additional weight. I guess I didn’t get a run in that day anyway, so may as well get the extra exercise…

A lot of the afternoon was spent just hanging out, then. We tossed baseballs, threw frisbees, floated in the lake, and generally relaxed. Some folks got naps in, which is always welcome! Honestly, it was just a nice, calm weekend where the kids could play and we could just hang out with no real agenda. There weren’t any attractions nearby, nor restaurants, so we didn’t have anything else to distract us! We had steaks the first night, then fajitas the next night, both of which turned out really nice!

Overall, it was a good trip! We’ll need to do it again sometime! Seeing each other for Thanksgiving and Christmas is nice, but getting the chance to do it more often is always welcome.

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Puerto Rico Vacation – Assorted Musings

That’s a dude on a horse. This was not the only horse we saw in the middle of the road…

Brooke and I have noticed some trends while we’ve been here and figured we should record them for posterity. These aren’t necessarily things that seem relevant to a particular day of the trip, so we thought that putting them in their own post would make most sense.

Here goes:

  • First of all, Brooke found this link on, like, Day Seven of our trip and it would have been helpful on Day One. It totally explained much of what we’d already experienced.
  • There are tons of Hyundais and Mitsubishis here on the island. It’s kinda unreal, relative to the distribution of car brands we normally see. We see lots of Toyotas, but not quite as many as those other two. Also, we’ve seen relatively few VWs. Pretty sure we saw more Scion xAs today than we’ve seen VWs total this whole trip…
  • It seems like all of the houses out here in the more rural parts of the island have dogs as their security system. It makes it hard to go for a run…
  • People don’t speak as much English as we expected! Sure, there’s frequently at least one person around that speaks enough to get the job done, but I guess we thought more people would know English. We’ve run into multiple situations where it’s very clear the person we’re speaking with has no idea what we’re saying.
  • The tourist information we’ve looked for online largely focuses on San Juan and not the rest of the island, making it kinda hard to find specifics and ideas for things to do in other regions.
  • It has rained literally every day we’ve been here, mostly in the mid-to-late afternoons. It’s been plenty warm in the mornings (mid-80s) for beaches and other things, so it isn’t a big deal: it’s just worth the time to think about things to do in the event of rain.
  • Seriously, why are there so many pizza places in Puerto Rico???
  • For this trip, cooking meals for dinner made life so much easier and probably maintained our sanity for most of the trip. We could go out to eat for lunch easily, but this way, we had a grocery store nearby to stock up and we could leisurely schedule meals for dinners and eat leftovers, saving some cash for other more fun things. Plus, the dinner options in Quebradillas were available, but realistically, we would have driven 20-30 minutes to get to places we wanted to have dinner. Ultimately, it was a good call.

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Puerto Rico Vacation – Part VI

Our last full day in Puerto Rico was mostly made up of a car ride, in all honesty. The drive from La Parguera to El Yunque rainforest was a little under 4 hours, so we hit the road relatively early after our donuts. We had the Switch and tablets along, so the kids were entertained well enough. We left soon enough that we made it to El Yunque close enough to lunchtime, so we didn’t have to stop.

A note on El Yunque: it’s the only rainforest under the US National Forest Service’s purview, so it presented a unique opportunity for us to check out a different environment than we’ve seen elsewhere in the country. We hit the visitor center first, which is in a temporary building outside of the forest because the old building still needs repairs after Hurricane Maria came through. Benicio del Toro narrated the 18 minute video we watched. It was glorious.

Stepping back a minute, we drove in through the western part of the park and stopped at a few waterfalls, all of which were right along the road and frankly weren’t all that impressive relative to what we’d seen elsewhere on the island. We found a small grocery store on the way in and picked up Lunchables, so the kids were plenty satisfied.

After we visited the aforementioned visitor center, we drove into the eastern part of the park where all the other tourists were. First, we stopped at a waterfall that had tons of people at it, so we didn’t stay all that long. Second, we climbed up a watchtower that was built in the 1960s, so while it wasn’t particularly old compared with other things we’d seen, it was still cool to look out over the island.

Other than that, we didn’t do all that much in the park. There were more hiking trails to visit, but as it was our last day on the island, we weren’t in the mood for a 1.5 hr hike up a mountain. It was cool, but we figure we probably would have done more in the rainforest had we visited it sooner. Next time, maybe!

We drove another 30 minutes or so to our last Airbnb of the trip, dropped off our stuff, then headed off to a nice seafood restaurant within walking distance. The night was beautiful, we were seated next to the ocean, and we got to watch the sunset from the boardwalk. You couldn’t ask for a better evening!

The next day, we picked up pancakes a mile or so away from where we needed to drop off the rental car, took the shuttle to the airport, and waited for the plane to get there! We had 6 hrs of flights that day that the kids handled as well as they did the first day. Returning to St. Louis, we found ourselves in a hailstorm, so that was fun…

It was a great vacation! We’d definitely go back, but will probably wait a few years to check a few more boxes off the vacation list!

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Puerto Rico Vacation – Part V

After I went to two places labeled “car wash” in Google (the first was defunct…), I vacuumed out the sand castle Calvin had tracked along into the car, after which we finished packing up from our Quebradillas Airbnb and headed off toward La Pargueras on the southwestern tip of the island.

The trip itself was only supposed to take maybe an hour and 40 minutes, but we took a detour into Cabo Rojo for lunch at Papa’s Pizza (it’s amazing how many pizza places there are in Puerto Rico…), which killed about an hour of the day.

After the pizza place, we went to the Cabo Rojo Lighthouse, which was a part of a protected wetland named Playa Sucia (named because it was quite dirty…not as in “trash,” but as in “plant matter”). Apparently, sea turtles and manatees call this area “home,” but we didn’t see any. Saw plenty of hermit crabs, though!

Aside from the lighthouse (which was cool, but as you couldn’t go inside it, we could only take in the view from the cliffside and watch the ocean a bit), we also visited some sea salt fields where we learned a bit about “Puerto Rico’s First Industry.” It looked like a sizeable operation, though we didn’t see anyone actually working at the site (aside from those in the interpretive center). It was a nice little unplanned diversion on our trip to La Parguera.

A brief aside: the southwestern part of Puerto Rico is really reminiscent of the American mainland south west. Seriously, we were there last summer and the plant life was more desolate and dry, there were few trees (and those that were present were far shorter), and we saw cows and horses all over. It was really interesting!

The reason we were heading to La Parguera was that we had reservations for the bioluminescent bay for 6:30 that night. Brooke found another Airbnb in the town (that was decidedly less impressive than our previous one…) so that we wouldn’t have to drive all the way back to Quebradillas for another night. We also figured this would give us an opportunity to check out the southern end of the island more than we’d initially planned, so win-win.

La Parguera itself was interesting. It felt like a place I’d go for a bachelor party, in that it had lots of restaurants and bars in close proximity and…that’s most of what there was to do there. It was loud, sounded like a party was happening much of the time, and it wasn’t the cleanest place we’d been. Still, you could get a piña colada and walk around the streets with it, so good times.

Regardless, we hit the boat for our 6:30 appointment and headed off to an island in the bay to wait for the sun to go down.

Lemme tell you about this trip. It was about $180 for the four of us to do it, lasted 2 hours, had complementary chicken empanadas, and a cooler of water, soda and beer. Oh yeah, and you got to swim with dinoflagellates that glow when you disturb them. It was really cool. Calvin only got in for a bit, but Meg, Brooke and I swam for about a half hour in ~10 ft deep water. It was difficult to take pictures of, so there’s not much I can put here, but the best I can describe is that it’s like seeing the waves generated from your arms when you swim, but strangely you can see them even when it’s mostly pitch black out (because of the obvious “glowing” part). It was most definitely worth it – can’t recommend it enough.

Now, that night was probably the worst night of sleep we got. The Airbnb we stayed at was…okay…but less than ideal… There were two bedrooms, but one of them was a futon with a TV that didn’t get cable and didn’t have a way to run Netflix on it (though, thankfully, we brought the Chromecast along).

The worst part was that we lost power for 1.5 hrs when “the party” was happening elsewhere (including music…all the music…), and when you don’t have an air conditioner running and have to have windows open to let any ventilation in, you…hear…everything. So yeah, the power came back on and things got better, but it wasn’t ideal…

Anyway, the next morning, we got some donuts down the street and they were awesome. Then we headed off to the other side of the island!

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Puerto Rico Vacation – Part IV

The next day was Brooke’s birthday!! We got up a bit more slowly than we had the previous few days, giving me a little more time for another run on Monday morning (went better than the previous day, but still not as good as I’m used to) before we headed out to Rincon for the morning. Rincon is a “surf town,” so mostly we were just going to check it out, as it was likely to have a different “feel” than we’d experienced in other communities.

The town itself reminded me more of “old” Lake of the Ozarks, though Brooke didn’t agree so much. It was obvious more people travel through the region, as there was more traffic, more folks on the public beaches, and definitely more trash in various parts of the community. At the same time, they also had more souvenir shops and cafes available to accommodate the tourists coming through. The main public beach looked really nice, though we didn’t stay long enough to play. After checking out the beach, we hit a souvenir shop to get bracelets for the kids and a sticker for the car-top carrier we couldn’t bring with us on the plane.

After stopping in Rincon proper, we hit the lighthouse, Faro de Punta Higuero. Honestly, there isn’t much to see there, but the passionfruit mojito Brooke got was worth it, so everyone was happy. We also got to observe some surfing from that vantage point, so everybody won!

By this point, it was after 12:30 pm and we were all hungry (and the rain was coming in), so we headed off to Guayabo’s Sea Breeze seafood restaurant for a nice birthday lunch for Brooke. The only seafood we got was shrimp, but we got a sampler full of fried pork, chicken, cheese, corn sticks, and plantains…all of which were excellent.

After the restaurant, we came back to finally actually watch Pirates of the Caribbean, but were interrupted by a poor internet connection, so we took a break in the hot tub again for a bit before returning to the movie along with some popcorn and other snacks. It was a nice, relaxing evening!

The next two days were “beach days,” of sorts. The weather was consistently “no rain in the morning, then rain starting around 12:00 or 1:00 and going into the late-afternoon.” Thus, on Tuesday, we went to Mar Chiquita Beach, about an hour away from Quebradillas. The beach itself was really cool in that it was something of a cove off the northern edge of the island, where a calm, blue pool formed off the ocean.

Sadly, the water was crazy choppy that day, so getting in the water was a definite no-go. Still, watching the waves crash against the rocks was really cool, and the kids still had plenty of fun playing in the sand, continually moving their sand “stadium” up the hill to keep it safe from the crashing waves.

The rain came in as we expected, though it hit a bit faster than we planned, so we got the interior of the car a bit more “sandy” than we’d intended. Brooke gave the kids some more snacks for the back of the car and we took off in the rain. That afternoon, we got back to the Airbnb and got in the hot tub again between rain showers. Like ya do.

The next morning, we went to Crash Boat Beach, which was about an hour in the other direction from Mar Chiquita. This one was probably my personal favorite because you could go out relatively far into the water, the water was much calmer than Mar Chiquita was, it was easy to see in the water, and there were a lot more people there to enjoy it with us. The kids played in the sand some, but because the water was so much better, we spent a decent amount of time out in the water with me holding Calvin while Meg would jump up as each wave came in toward the coastline.

And like clockwork, just after 12:00, more rain came in. This time, we were a bit more prepared and started on lunch before it rained too hard (we could watch the dark clouds set in), so we were in generally better spirits on the drive home. Again, like the previous day, we got back and the kids got in the hot tub for another 45 minutes or so while Brooke and I slowly go to packing up the house.

Our last night there was spent doing laundry, eating some chicken and bowtie noodles, and killing off the ends of various snack bags and lingering drink cans we had lying around. We bought a cheap styrofoam cooler on Day One, so we could bring our milk and such with us on the next leg of the adventure!