Vacation Update

 

 

 

I should have written this over a week ago. I know by this point a lot will have been overridden with all of the senseless day to day grind that has being eroding away at my happy memory. Work has been such a whirlwind since we got back from vacation that I come home grateful for the quiet and the peace that comes from reading fiction in my own warm bed filled with my animals while my husband surfs on his iPad. Doing the things I need to do feels far away and unimportant. So I’ve been getting by, as usual, on the minimum. Feed us, feed animals, clean self, clean clothes, work, home work…bed, book, sex, rest.

But for 12 glorious days before all that, Zac and I had an amazing vacation, our first in years actually. First we flew home to Tennessee and had a pleasant, though short visit with our families. Zac’s mom and dad showed an excitement about the baby that I truly hadn’t expected. Zac had even warned me before he had his surgery that his parents weren’t really "kid" people. I think he underestimated the power of blood. You may not like kids but you probably like your kids…or grandkids as the case may be. They talked about it frequently and at length. Neva (Zac’s mom) gave me a sly smile when the boys wandered off to talk hobbies and revealed a quilt sized bag full of crochet things. There were hats, jackets, blankets, booties, mittens, swaddlers and even a little dress. She had made duplicates of every thing. There were an even number of "boy" colors and "girl" colors. I was so tickled I could have cried. It was such a thoughtful gesture. They’re all piled up on my kitchen table now just waiting to be washed. Zac’s dad also surprised me. They both kept telling us stories of when Zachary was little and saying they hoped for this or that with ours and how much fun it was going to be.

Zac’s aunt and cousin had a similar level of excitement about it. Of course, so did all of my family, too. It’s different, you know? Here in Utah we’re in our own little bubble. The excitement sort of fizzles out or gets lost in the day to day. I have moments, mostly late at night, where I really "feel" it but mostly it’s just business as usual. Seeing family in person and hearing their excitement, their anticipation…it made it real in a whole different way. At the time I was still really lost in my worry that something was wrong since I still wasn’t (and still don’t) feeling very pregnant. That was the first time I realized that if something were to happen that I would be far from being alone in the loss. It both was comforting and scary.

On that note, I think my fear has mostly subsided. I have moments where I worry but again it’s become such a part of the routine that I don’t dwell on it. There are pleasant little cramps and things of the like that are peppered enough through the days that I don’t obsess the way I did. Tomorrow is our first ultrasound. I’m very much looking forward to that reassurance.

Back to vacation…

 

My mom, my sister and myself all had a wonderful day together, a much needed one all around. Mom and I drove to Knoxville to meet Arielle. (Brief background since I haven’t discussed it here: She’s been living in Chattanooga, her husband has asked for a divorce and is seeing other women, her car barely works so she won’t drive it any further than she has to, and she may or may not have cervical cancer…..Mom has taken on taking care of my worthless uncle who is now on Hospice. This is in addition to my grandmother and my oldest uncle who she has been taking care of for years. Everyone is stressed all around.) We had lunch there at a sandwich shop then drove back to the hotel Zac and I were staying in where we spent the whole rest of the day in the pool. We swam and laughed and talked. When we got tired we went to Wal-mart, bought cheap pool toys, ate the other half of our sandwiches, and did it all over again. It was a great day. I wish I’d had enough foresight to plan better because there would have been time for us to do that two days instead of just one if we’d went to get Ari sooner. Oh well. I’ll treasure the one we had.

Ari and I played catch using these silly velcro mitts that came with a tennis ball. They turned out not to be water proof and disintigrated pretty quickly. What was great was that it only made it that much more entertaining. Not only did you have to catch the ball you had to hold your mitt together while you did it.

 

Zac’s cousin Carolyn is doing a lot better. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at the beginning of the year and has went through surgeries and chemo since then. She’s showing a lot of improvement and they think she’s going to beat it. It had already spread to her lungs by the time they caught it but she has responded very well to treatment. The tumors have shrunk considerably. Zac bought her a Wii which we took to her while we were there. We were looking for something to help her get active again. She’s just starting to get her strength back after that last round of chemo. She seemed to really love it. When we went back to visit the next day she was playing on it as we came in.

(This will probably be disjointed. I’m all over the place.)

 

There was some sadness while we were there. Lainea’s grandfather (my great-great uncle) passed away the first day we were in. We didn’t go to the funeral (it felt inappropriate, while Zac and I have Lainea’s forgiveness I do not think we have the rest of the family’s – which is their right). Sad.

 

We spent our last visiting night in Kingsport seeing my dad and spending the night with my uncle. Dad’s is always a little awkward. I think he has a hard time keeping up with what Zac talks about…both because he’s just not into anything technical or electronic and because he’s starting to go deaf. He smiles and nods while Zac talks and asks generalized questions. I try to switch the subject to family to make him more comfortable, talk about the things he knows. Zac took pictures of us together on the deck. They turned out nice surprisingly. I had an emotional moment as we were leaving. I realized that there is finally a picture of me in the house: it’s on the bottom shelf in my dad’s "man cave".

He’s supposed to come visit after the baby gets here. I’m both excited and dubious.

 

Uncle Mike’s is always a good time. He and his wife are just generally happy, upbeat people. There’s always a lot of chatter and joking. Zac always fixes something and Mike’s mind is blown that he just knows how to do those things. This time it was the wireless network.

 

The next morning we got up at a mind numbing 6AM and departed for theA beach!! It was an 8 hour drive and worth every second. We stayed in Kill Devil Hills, NC at the Outer Banks. It was beautiful there. We got in right at 3pm, checked in, changed and became beach bums for the whole rest of the day. We did that most days actually. We would get up early to do whatever activity was planned for the day then spend the whole rest of the daylight playing in the water or basking in the sun.

Our activities:

Visit the Wright Brother’s Museum. That really was pretty nea

t. They had large stones marking the take off and landing spots of their first 4 flights. They also had a working model of the original plane.

Visit Cape Hattras Lighthouse. Also pretty cool. There were 250ish stairs to climb to get to the top. It was tiring  but worth it. Beautiful view from up there even if I am scared senseless of heights.

Meet my dearest OD friend. Awesome day. We share a social awkwardness/nervousness which somehow made it that much less awkward and uncomfortable. We all had dinner together, visited the pier for awhile, then Zac left us to our own devices so we stood out in the water after dark and talked till I was soaked from surprise high waves.

Other than we just played in the water. It was incredibly relaxing. We had a lot of close encounters with wild life. The first day, Zac stepped on a crab which expressed its extreme displeasure by pinching his toe. That lead us out to by beach shoes. It’s a good thing, too, because I went on to step on a fish and a manta ray. Both times we were body boarding and the water lifted me and sat me back down in a space that was occupied. The fish squirmed and took off. The manta ray pulled the ground (ie himself) out from under me nearly knocking me over and popped a fin out of the water as he took off. I’m convinced this is the manta ray equivalent of the middle finger.

Body boarding was also surprisingly fun. We watched a couple doing it the first day we were there so we bought a cheap board…then a second cheap board. We never really got good at it (though Zac was much better than I was) but we had a blast trying. Zac’s board finally gave way in the middle (but was still usable). We donated both of them to a family with a whole peck of children the day we left.

The beach there was so populated with wildlife that the whole time you’re in the water you’re surrounded by little fish who jump and flee from larger ones whenever they venture into the shallows. On the beach itself there were lots of birds: little birds that ran in and out of the surf, seagulls, and pelicans diving into the water. And the crabs! There were tiny crabs every where. The least pleasant of our wildlife interactions were the jellyfish. They were harmless but they washed up on the shore so you had to watch where you stepped. I think one of them may have hit me in the water. I had a mystery welt when I got out which is apparently all that particular type does….leave you with uncomfortable, itchy welts.

After dark we would go to the pool to swim or sit on the beach and watch the moon rise. One memorable evening we took advantage of the desolation and indulged in the ultimate (for a reason!) romantic cliche and had sex on the beach.

We watched two sun rises. The first one we got up just early enough to watch the sun peak out at us and then went back to bed. The second was the day we left. We checked out and Zac decided he wanted to take a few last pictures of the ocean. I’m glad he did, otherwise we might never have seen the dolphins. They were jumping and playing out off the shore. I’m sure they were after all the fish but there was a lot of acrobatics. Zac captured a few of them on film but they’re barely specks in the background. Beautiful thing to witness though.

We spent the rest of that day driving back to Tennessee so we could catch our flight the next morning. Lainea and her son met us in Knoxville to have one last dinner together. That was a fun evening, too.

Our flight was mostly uneventful. When we went to get our connection in Atlanta I heard a familiar voice call out my name. That’s just not something you expect when you’re hundreds of miles away from everyone you know. It was one of my coworkers. She’s from South Carolina and had flown back for the weekend for a wedding. We ended up on the same flight home.

 

That’s all I can manage tonight. This wasn’t told as prettily as I would have liked but at this point I’m just going for a record of events. I’ll try to post some pictures some time this week.

Night, All.