Travel Blog - Day 10: Goodbye Beach
I know, where is a blog for day 9?! I'm working on it, but day 10 is so raw and fresh I feel like I should tackle it now.
Ah, the last day. It started off just like every other last day of a family vacation...
We waved goodbye to the house and got one last donut before we rolled out of town.
Now everyone else is flying out today or starting a long drive home, but thanks to a cheap fare our family doesn't fly out until tomorrow morning, so we had a whole day to kill. We had planned to hit the Wright Brothers memorial, but at 9:30 AM it was already 83 degrees and 90% humidity. The memorial involves a short, but sunny hike up a big sand dune/hill. Chad and I took one look at our kids and changed the plan. The LAST thing they needed was one more short, sunny anything.
Instead we just headed for Norfolk. We figured we could take them to a movie or go to the mall or find a local something to see. So what did we do, you might ask? Well let's put it this way, half way here I made Chad pull the car over and switch me because I was afraid he might fall asleep at the wheel. I was nearly deaf in my right ear from Brynn's almost constant crying and wailing. Grace was crying and yelling about Brynn's crying and wailing and it was about 90 degrees by the time we got here. So I pulled off, called the hotel and said would it be possible for us to check in early? "What is your ETA?" asks front desk man. "About a minute and a half," I say. "I can accommodate that," he says. :)
We checked in, went to our room, we turned on the TV and everyone lay down in a giant heap. Chad was the only one that fell asleep, but at least it was cool and restful.
After a couple of hours of resting we decided to go get some lunch. At lunch Brynn had a melt down. So we stopped at Walgreens to get everyone some Tylenol and Band aids and some decongestant for the plane tomorrow. (Brynn has said a couple of times in the last few days that one of her ears hurts a little). As we walked out of Walgreens, Chad carrying Grace, me carrying Brynn, everyone crying a little, I said to Chad "I think this is what they call falling apart."
Now I had noticed in the morning that Brynn had one eye that was a looking a little teary. By this time, it was starting to goop a bit. At lunch I noticed that her eye looked really bad. Red, puffy, gooping, watering. I asked her if it hurt and she said no, only when she blinks. Great.
Normally I would give it a day or two and see if it would clear up, but we are getting on a plane at 6 AM tomorrow. I looked at Walgreens to see if I could find any eyes drops. They had a few things, but I've never given her anything like that before and I didn't want to make it worse, so I decided to call our pediatrician. The nurse called back pretty quickly and said it was probably a little infection. Did I know where there was an urgent care near me? Nope. So she says, do I know where there is a pharmacy in the area where she can call in a prescription? Well, I sure do. Right here on the receipt from my Walgreens is the phone number for the pharmacy.
It took a few hours, but we got the eye drops and started dosing her up. It already looks a little better. It is still really red and kind of puffy, but the gooping seems to have stopped. We washed everyone's blankets because Brynn especially is always rubbing hers on her face and if her eye is infected we don't want her spreading it to her other eye.
I guess overall the day worked out ok. But it has been a long time since Brynn cried ALL day and today sure felt like all day crying. We just babied her as best we could.
Tonight we ordered pizza in the room and put the kids to bed at 7:30. There was a lot of whining about imaginary injuries, so I was passing out band aids with reckless abandon. Eventually, we settled them down, said prayers and then it took them a grand total of 4 mins to go to sleep. (Brynn is actually sleeping in her clothes for tomorrow. Hopefully we can wait until the last possible second to get her up and put her in the car.)
So here I sit. We are packed and ready to go. I'm blogging and Chad is watching the Norfolk traffic channel. It is literally the shots from local traffic cams with no sound. "Why don't we have a channel like this at home? he asks. Hmmm....I think Chad is a little tired. So we are going to sleep, because we've got to get up at 4 AM to catch the flight.
It's been an awesome trip, but we are ready to get home!
Ah, the last day. It started off just like every other last day of a family vacation...
- Packing cars
- Keeping track of the babies because every door in the house is open and for some reason they see that as an invitation to escape
- Swooping in and out, hollering back and forth to your spouse (and children old enough to help) about where things are, what they should bring out next
- looking for lost keys
- looking for the mates to missing shoes
- Cleaning out the fridge
- sorting out the laundry we all threw into community loads the night before
- wiping tears of sorrow for leaving the beach, the shells, the boogie board, the crab you were sure you would get to take home as a pet (yeah, like any maternal lapse in judgment would really be so severe you'd end up with a crab).
We waved goodbye to the house and got one last donut before we rolled out of town.
Now everyone else is flying out today or starting a long drive home, but thanks to a cheap fare our family doesn't fly out until tomorrow morning, so we had a whole day to kill. We had planned to hit the Wright Brothers memorial, but at 9:30 AM it was already 83 degrees and 90% humidity. The memorial involves a short, but sunny hike up a big sand dune/hill. Chad and I took one look at our kids and changed the plan. The LAST thing they needed was one more short, sunny anything.
Instead we just headed for Norfolk. We figured we could take them to a movie or go to the mall or find a local something to see. So what did we do, you might ask? Well let's put it this way, half way here I made Chad pull the car over and switch me because I was afraid he might fall asleep at the wheel. I was nearly deaf in my right ear from Brynn's almost constant crying and wailing. Grace was crying and yelling about Brynn's crying and wailing and it was about 90 degrees by the time we got here. So I pulled off, called the hotel and said would it be possible for us to check in early? "What is your ETA?" asks front desk man. "About a minute and a half," I say. "I can accommodate that," he says. :)
We checked in, went to our room, we turned on the TV and everyone lay down in a giant heap. Chad was the only one that fell asleep, but at least it was cool and restful.
After a couple of hours of resting we decided to go get some lunch. At lunch Brynn had a melt down. So we stopped at Walgreens to get everyone some Tylenol and Band aids and some decongestant for the plane tomorrow. (Brynn has said a couple of times in the last few days that one of her ears hurts a little). As we walked out of Walgreens, Chad carrying Grace, me carrying Brynn, everyone crying a little, I said to Chad "I think this is what they call falling apart."
Now I had noticed in the morning that Brynn had one eye that was a looking a little teary. By this time, it was starting to goop a bit. At lunch I noticed that her eye looked really bad. Red, puffy, gooping, watering. I asked her if it hurt and she said no, only when she blinks. Great.
Normally I would give it a day or two and see if it would clear up, but we are getting on a plane at 6 AM tomorrow. I looked at Walgreens to see if I could find any eyes drops. They had a few things, but I've never given her anything like that before and I didn't want to make it worse, so I decided to call our pediatrician. The nurse called back pretty quickly and said it was probably a little infection. Did I know where there was an urgent care near me? Nope. So she says, do I know where there is a pharmacy in the area where she can call in a prescription? Well, I sure do. Right here on the receipt from my Walgreens is the phone number for the pharmacy.
It took a few hours, but we got the eye drops and started dosing her up. It already looks a little better. It is still really red and kind of puffy, but the gooping seems to have stopped. We washed everyone's blankets because Brynn especially is always rubbing hers on her face and if her eye is infected we don't want her spreading it to her other eye.
I guess overall the day worked out ok. But it has been a long time since Brynn cried ALL day and today sure felt like all day crying. We just babied her as best we could.
Tonight we ordered pizza in the room and put the kids to bed at 7:30. There was a lot of whining about imaginary injuries, so I was passing out band aids with reckless abandon. Eventually, we settled them down, said prayers and then it took them a grand total of 4 mins to go to sleep. (Brynn is actually sleeping in her clothes for tomorrow. Hopefully we can wait until the last possible second to get her up and put her in the car.)
So here I sit. We are packed and ready to go. I'm blogging and Chad is watching the Norfolk traffic channel. It is literally the shots from local traffic cams with no sound. "Why don't we have a channel like this at home? he asks. Hmmm....I think Chad is a little tired. So we are going to sleep, because we've got to get up at 4 AM to catch the flight.
It's been an awesome trip, but we are ready to get home!
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