Three Days of Chaos in the Sun

Another summer, another family vacation. We took a shorter trip than usual this year since my wife is pregnant. We stayed at a house that my parents had rented at the beach for the week.

This means that we crammed all of the chaos and craziness of an entire week into 3 short days at the beach with my parents and my younger brother. It had been years since we took a trip with my parents so it was fun to do so again and just enjoy spending time together. As for my brother, once we start hanging out, suddenly we're 10-years-old again, doing all that stuff that brothers do.

My family had fun too during our shortened, mini-vacation. Let's review, shall we?

DAY 1:

My wife, who is eight months pregnant, catches an upper respiratory infection. She's miserable. We just got back from the trip yesterday and she's already been to Patient First (6pm) and then the E.R. (3am) to fix everything that Patient First screwed up. Keep up the great work, Patient First.

DAY 2:

My 10-year-old daughter wipes out in the waves on her boogie-board. She hits so hard that she cracks the board in half and runs out of the water with blood gushing out of her nose. This prompts a Baywatch-like sprint from myself AND from the lifeguard on duty. We check her out. She's okay but done for the day. Dude, nice wave!

DAY 3:

We check out, pack the minivan (hey, it's my wife's), and make the 3-hour trip back home. We unpack and suddenly I realize that I left my PDA (basically my Blackberry, for those of you who are technologically challenged) on TOP of the minivan when we left the beach house. We suddenly recall hearing a THUMP when we pulled out onto the highway. At the time, I had calmly reassured my 10-year-old that the luggage was just settling in the back of the minivan. Oops.

I figured that my PDA was toast by now...either cracked open on the side of the road or run over. I considered calling my relatives who live at the beach to see if they could scour the highway before it got dark. Suddenly, my cell phone rang. Someone had seen it lying on the highway, stopped, opened it, and saw my phone number! It was in tact!

I don't know if you believe in small miracles but I do. This person is my new hero. She is supposed to call me back today to get my address. Hopefully, she follows through, but this story is already unbelievable.

I can't wait to do it all again next year with ANOTHER kid added to the mix! Surf's up!