Vacation

Home Again, Home Again — New Year Ahead


Home again, home again…

It is December 27th, and I am trying to come up with something profound and thought-provoking, optimistic and reassuring for the New Year. Only 4 days to go, and 467 words for this year-ending missive.

Another brand-new year, 2012…so many challenges, so many new possibilities: where to start? I almost wish we were moving – I like to move – the chance to re-organize, deep-clean and de-clutter. But we’re not, and that’s okay, too. There are plenty of good things about NOT moving, like loving our location and community, stability, not having to go through all those address changes for utilities, driver’s licenses, schools, checks, address labels, etc. I like where we are, I just wish we could re-organize, deep clean and de-clutter, get rid of the old big-screen TV (who knew it would be so hard to get rid of what was, a decade ago, the latest in modern technology and home entertainment – and now doesn’t work anymore?!) and buy a new couch.

Since we knew we were not moving this year (our lease was up, we extended), and with our oldest kid a senior in high school next year, knowing we will be losing him so soon to college and beyond, we decided to Go BIG this year for Christmas. Instead of presents and all the usual routine, we took the kids on a fabulous Road Trip & Caribbean Cruise Adventure. We were gone nine days (six onboard) and it was amazing. I can’t write about that, yet, though, in case the major women’s magazine to which I pitched the article responds affirmatively (fingers crossed, everybody!). So…

I can’t think of any New Year’s Resolutions, either. Well, other than to land another article in a major magazine, I’d like to get back to that. And to update and revitalize The Rebel Housewife – it’s definitely time, but that is so overwhelming, I don’t even know where to start. With the 10th Anniversary of the Rebel Blog & Rebel Reviews coming up this year, I feel like a dinosaur. Apparently, I need to make the move to WordPress! Update my logo design! Figure out what to do with all those archives! Develop my Facebook presence – make a landing page! Twitter! Google+! LinkedIn!

Arrrggghhhh! I just did figure out how to add pictures to my blog posts – and how to announce the updates on Facebook & Twitter – let’s celebrate!

As I work my way through the post-vacation laundry, trying to get everything put away, I have decided to clean out my closet, which is certainly a resolution-worthy intention. If only it were as easy as cleaning out my email inboxes, which I did earlier today: from hundreds of messages to about a dozen. The To Do List is calling, including two new Rebel Reviews to close out the year. Perhaps I will come up with another couple of New Year’s Resolutions in that mess…or maybe not.

Happy New Year —
Live, Love & Laugh in 2012!

www.facebook.com/TheRebelHousewife

Myrtle Beach Family Vacation on Twitter

We had a great time on our quickie Family Vacation to Myrtle Beach – for close to less than $1000, family of five. Of course, we stayed in a very “retro” motel with kitchenette; only three nights (that’s all we thought we could handle – we were right!); packed most of our food: breakfasts, lunches and snacks; and, since we didn’t find great food and dining options until the last night of our adventure (unwilling to stray too far from the beach/water park), we only had one nice meal out at a restaurant (not counting Burger King)!

We’ve lived 15 years in Atlanta, but this was our first trip to the South Carolina beach resort of legend. It was FUN, if a bit overwhelming: our favorite beach is still nice, quiet, remote Navarre Beach in northwest Florida, and Pensacola Beach for a big night out at Flounders. Of course, we ventured to Myrtle Beach for the anti-quiet family fun & activity: the resort water park, with water slide and lazy river; the dozen pools on-site; beachfront ‘luxury’; world-class miniature golf; and, at the Sea Mist Resort, free passes to nearby Family Kingdom Amusement Park and Family Kingdom Water Park. We packed a ton of fun into 3 nights/4 days:

Saturday, July 11th:
1) On our way 2 Myrtle Beach in the family truckster…so far, so good. Remains 2B seen if possible 14yo Puberty Angst Boy to have fun w/family
2) Gorgeous day to be on a Road Trip!
1:17 PM Jul 11th from Twitterrific:
3) Picnic lunch at I20 rest area, SC Welcome Center. Caged monkeys getting restless & bickery – good food & stretch help (esp me). Near 1/2way.
4) En route to Myrtle Beach from Atlanta – Darlington?! Off the right track to detour, #NASCAR obsessed: Rebel@Darlington
4:34 PM Jul 11th from Twitterrific
5) We are so far off designated route, no idea where we are…ah, to be lost in SC…oh, I20 just ends, apparently…Jeep GPS so bad, TG iPhone

6) Arrived Myrtle Beach: wow. Still settling in, waiting for pizza delivery while everyone else down at pool – 10pm. Beach is beautiful at nite
7) Night beach tip: neon glow bracelets(Target) keep track of your kids.
Also fun:anything that glows/flashes to throw in & comes back in surf!
8) Arrived 7pm – already: arcade, comp drink 4 mom&dad, resort grocery, mini golf/waterpark (2mrw), beach & pool…starving, waiting 4 pizza!

Sunday, July 12th:
End of very long day, but fun. 3 kids buzzin@midnite, 2 tired parents. Resort water park-awesome; beach-also; old school amusement park;-)

Monday, July 13th:
Last night in Myrtle Beach: afternoon thundershowers – big Hibachi dinner @ Kono Asian Grill. Big-time mini golf tourney @ pirate joint!

Tuesday, July 14th:
1) Myrtle Beach to home: Atlanta. 4hrs to go, I can hardly wait! Miss my bed, condo, Piedmont Park & Mocha the Dog (her dog-vacation@Dogaroo).
2) Of course, hubby & I are exhausted from vacation w/kids – broke, too! Good time had by all…no place like home, no place like home!!
4:26 PM Jul 14th from Twitterrific:
3) Home again, home again, jiggity jig! I will never go on another family vacation w/ 14yo,12yo&9yo again! (I always say that.) Unpack begins.
4) We did not bring home any beach creatures (learned that lesson long ago!) – empty shells only. We did have that tantrum though – required?!

Recession Family Travel Tips

As we search and re-search to find a fun, unique, AFFORDABLE family-of-five vacation plan for July 4th, preferably on a nice, quiet beach somewhere within a six- to eight-hour drive from Atlanta…[June 24th: no luck yet]

Recession Family Travel Tips

from our trip to Concord/Charlotte, NC – May 2009

1) Hotels.com & the iPhone – Awesome!

We’d never been to the Charlotte area to stay overnight, so we didn’t know what our options were, as far as accommodations. We were traveling last-minute (as usual), and we didn’t want to risk an online reservation commitment sight-unseen and drive up to find a better option right next door, or down the street – closer to where we might want to be, if we knew where we wanted to be, ya know?

Hotels.com was the trip saver this time, since we were able to research online ahead of time and then compare prices and hotel information on the iPhone as we were driving around. When we decided upon the Wingate Inn by Wyndham, we walked in to inquire about the rate, but it turns out they couldn’t offer the low rate and special advertised sale on Hotels.com. We sat down on the couch in the lobby to make the reservation on the iPhone, and the desk attendant called us over within three minutes, as soon as the reservation popped up on his computer. Great savings and convenience!

2) Gem Mining v. Amusement Park – Nature is Best!

We spent an amazing afternoon somewhere in the outback of North Carolina, an hour north of Charlotte, mining for gems at The Emerald Hollow Mine in Hiddenite, NC. It was an offbeat tourist-trap kind of operation out in the woods, but it was an afternoon spent with the kids wading down a winding creek through the forest, screening for gems and interesting rocks, and then panning for treasure from buckets of dirt (“ore”) in the sluiceway.

It was absolutely gorgeous and peaceful, easy and (relatively) cheap, too – a whole bucket of souvenirs included! The entire family had a great time. When we were at the amusement park the next day, standing in long lines, getting sun burns, losing children and emptying our pockets ($$$) at every opportunity, Dear Hubby and I reflected on the wonderful day spent at the creek. In comparison…we would have rather mined again!

3) Amusement Parks after 4pm – The only way to go!

When we were there in May, the Regular General Admission price (ages 3 – 61) at CaroWinds Amusement & Water Park was almost $50 per ticket: $250 for a family of five. The Twilight Ticket – valid after 4pm – was half that, and the park was open until 10pm. We decided, given the heat during the day, our family vacation budget (limited) and our capacity as a family to endure 12 hours straight in the heat and crowds of an amusement park – not to mention the expense of a full day of meals and snacks – we went after 4pm.

It was fun and we did enjoy our time there, in spite of losing children, incredibly long lines right up until closing and a really, really gross dinner of old hamburgers and pizza…still, we did have that conversation about our gem mining experience in the cool mountains the day before.

4) Downtime Entertainment – Camp Mommy Tip #1

Always, always carry a deck of cards or a game of UNO (UNO H2O is perfect, wet or dry conditions) for waiting with kids – perfect in restaurants while you are waiting for the food to arrive and at Rest Stops and other occasions when it’s too hot or inappropriate to run around like wild animals let loose on the unsuspecting public…

5) Auto Travel & Fast Food Options

I don’t know why we didn’t figure this out sooner, after 15 years as parents, but it is far better to pack a picnic basket and a cooler with healthy snacks and drinks for the trip, and stop at Rest Areas along the way than smorgasbord along with Fast Food and gas station Quicki Marts.

Admittedly, when the kids were younger, we’d map our route from McDonald’s Playland to the next McD’s Play Place along the route, but now that they are older, picnic and potty stops at the Rest Areas are the way to go, to limit calories and sugar intake, as well as the chance to get everybody out of the car to stretch, run around, geocache and gather travel brochures, discount coupons and maps in the Welcome Center. Plus, the potties tend to be a whole lot cleaner.

Camp Mommy 2009: Weekly Twitter Update

Our current Twitter following on RebelHousewife.com (follow rebelupdate) is at 12 (doubled in one week!) and steadily increasing — I am really excited about that! For the other 3,540 dedicated Rebels out there who are not on Twitter.com or who can’t/don’t want to follow rebelupdate on Twitter, here’s the weekly update, in 140-character Twitter snippets:

Tuesday:
1) Sitting at car repair – Jeep stopped starting! We are not getting along lately. I miss my Chevy Tahoe.

2) Oh Taco Bell, I luv u so. It’s been at least 3yrs since our last encounter, but u were there when I needed u 2day. Thank u, Taco Bell.

3) Following Michael Waltrip (NASCAR driver/team owner)(one of our faves): mw55. OMG he tweets a LOT – maybe an ADHD Phenom too! Luv that mw55!

Thursday:
1) Attempting to ‘chunk’ a v. large project: 20min timed focus sessions. Goal: 6 x 20min/day. Yesterday: 0min. Here I go on 1st 20min today…

2) 2x20min done, I rock. V. excited re: BAD MOTHER by Ayelet Waldman, sent for review. Fave author, see: https://rebelhousewife.com/ayelet

3) testing couponmom-if I follow from rebelupdate, will couponmom’s tweets show up in Twitterbox on https://rebelhousewife.com? Will see…

4) I can follow and updates don’t post to rebelhousewife.com (privacy issues for people I’m following) – woo hoo! Now f’ing my f’ers
Quickly followed by:
5) Okay, that did NOT come out right…I am now fOLLOWing my fOLLOWERs and I love Twitter so – almost as much as Taco Bell. Happy Thursday!

6) Trying to make a family beach vacation plan, July 3 – 8: Florida or maybe Myrtle Beach (???-never been). Easy, fun, AFFORDABLE – any ideas?

Friday:
Camp Mommy Day 19/54: TGIF!! One camper home early, 3 kids (my 2+1) long, hot afternoon in ATL. Myrtle Beach for July 4th? Thx4tweets!

Camp Mommy 2009 – Two Weeks Already?!

It’s Friday, Day 9 out of 54 fabulous days of Summer Break & Camp Mommy, and I’m tired, ya’ll…I’m currently hiding out with the dog and my computer after separating the kids in their rooms for 15 minutes of QUIET TIME before we go across the street to the park for some fresh air and exercise that does not involve video controllers and battling/questing/goo-ing whatevers…

Our Friday Night (Family) Date Night plan is to load up the Jeep with pillows, blankets, lawn chairs and movie treats (candy & popcorn, oh my!); pick up a hot pizza at Whole Foods (I’ve heard they are delicious and not quite as non-nutritious as some other pizza providers-who-shall-not-be-named!) and park it at the Starlight Six Drive-In for a double feature: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian & Star Trek!

As far as Camp Mommy 2009, so far, so good:

  • Last day of school for us in Atlanta was Friday, May 22nd (but we go back to school August 10th, so it basically works out the same – we just get a headstart!).
  • Monday was Memorial Day. We went to the opening of our newly-renovated community pool at Piedmont Park, which is awesome!!
  • I don’t remember what we did Tuesday & Wednesday of last week, but we were getting ready for our Early Summer Long Weekend Getaway (Thursday – Sunday) to Concord, NC: gem mining, geocaching, Lowe’s Motor Speedway & the Hendrick Motorsports Museum & Shop (woo hoo!), Discover Mills (a big mall) & the NASCAR Speedpark (faux racing!) – oh, and a day at CaroWinds, which is a big amusement park outside of Charlotte.
  • We got back Sunday, cleaned up and did the laundry Monday, to take our 14yo Puberty Angst Boy (PAB) to the airport early Tuesday morning: He’s off to family in Washington State for a whole month!
  • We’ve barely known what to do with ourselves, me, almost-12yo Drama Queen and almost-9yo ADHD Phenom(they both turn in July), without PAB, but we managed…
  • Wednesday: Another visit to the fabulous new pool at Piedmont Park – lots of friends, lots of fun.
  • Thursday: Rainy day, we went to see the movie UP!, which we love, Love, LOVED – squirrel! – even 9yo ADHD Phenom who hates going to the movie theater, but made an exception for this movie – totally worth it! (Even though it made me cry – two times!)
  • Friday: Doctor’s appointments and errands, with the brief oasis of QUIET TIME in the late afternoon before we go to another movie, but this is at the drive-in, so it’s different!

See you back here & on Twitter.com (follow rebelupdate!) next week for the continuing adventures of Camp Mommy 2009.
Have a GREAT WEEKEND!!

FIVE-DAY FAMILY ROAD TRIP!


See Also: Road Trip Re-Cap – Five After-Thoughts.

It is so good to be home, although it will take a full week to recover from our FIVE-DAY FAMILY ROAD TRIP! We had a fantastic time, one of our best family vacations ever, from Atlanta to Cocoa Beach, Florida for now-8yo ADHD Phenom’s birthday and fireworks on the beach on the 4th of July; three of us stayed and played all day at the Pirate Ship kid’s pool at the Holiday Inn/Cocoa Beach — it was awesome! — while hubby and 13yo Puberty Angst Boy ‘snuck off’ to Daytona International Speedway (about an hour away) for pre-race activities and all-day NASCAR fun on the 4th. Everybody was perfectly happy with the arrangement, and our NASCAR boys ended up on TV, behind the media stages during Trading Paint and Trackside at…Daytona — while Jimmie Johnson and Elliott Sadler were on-stage (two top NASCAR drivers)–ohmigod!!

After two nights at the beach, we drove to Orlando and spent two days at SeaWorld and Aquatica, SeaWorld’s fabulous — and, as it turns out, very, very popular — new water park. After thoroughly exhausting and “crisping” (sunburn) ourselves at the theme parks, we got up Monday morning to make the long drive home to Atlanta, but ended up calling Mocha-the-dog’s dog-holiday resort in Atlanta and ditching her for one more night, so we could ‘stop by’ Daytona (yes, the racetrack — an hour outside of Orlando) ‘on the way’ home. We ended up staying and playing at Daytona International Speedway and the Daytona 500 Experience — OFFICIAL ATTRACTION OF NASCAR — (track tour, IMAX, racing simulators, museum, NASCAR gift shop, etc.) until 4 o’clock in the afternoon, which got us home at midnight…just twelve short hours ago.

I picked up a happy dog up this morning, after taking hubby to work — we are now all laying around, not moving for the rest of the day…let the catching-up/vacation recovery — LAUNDRY — begin…




Road Trip Re-Cap – Five After-Thoughts


See Also: FIVE-DAY FAMILY ROAD TRIP!

Two adults/three children, five days/four nights, 1500 miles (roughly), from Atlanta to Cocoa Beach, Florida (to Daytona & back to Cocoa Beach) to Orlando to Daytona (again) and home to Atlanta…

Family Road Trip Re-Cap – Five After-Thoughts:

  1. Long car trips CAN BE FUN — really! That’s not even a set-up to anything, no whining or complaining, we really had a great time. Trip prep helped a lot —
    See Top 10 – Family Vacation Travel Tips – Road Trip!

  2. Sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen — I am 40 years old, with freckles and fair skin I have passed down to my children, and I still can’t figure it out: We all came back with uncomfortably painful sunburned faces.
    I am the Worst.Mother.Ever.

    Thank goodness the kids and hubby love their swim shirts, which is the best sun protection for those vulnerable shoulders and backs. Normally, we all wear hats and huddle under beach/pool umbrellas, but that was impossible all day at the water park. We sprayed liberally, with the new aerosol high-SPF sunscreen spray — not only our body parts, but everything and everybody else within a 20 square foot radius — I have decided I hate that stuff and we’re going back to the squirt-on lotion (non-aerosol) that you have to rub in.

    It’s the face protection I can’t get the hang of, especially those ultra-sensitive under-eye regions and foreheads you can’t put anything on because it will drip down into their eyes — we have tried everything, so I am totally up for suggestions on this one — and then what to do after, when everybody is crisped and complaining. I drove out to a CVS Pharmacy in Orlando, searching for Noxzema Cold Cream — do they even make that anymore? I came back with NIVEA “Refreshingly Soft” Moisturizing Creme w/Jojoba Oil & Vitamin E and two different kinds of Aloe Vera Gel (COOLING and MOISTURIZING); as well as our old stand-by, Hawaiian Tropic ALOE After Sun Moisturizer, but nothing provided cool, instant relief without burning around the eyes or drying sticky and uncomfortable.

    Next time, we’ll all wear the hats, waterslides and lazy river floats notwithstanding.

  3. Theme parks are best visited and most-enjoyed AFTER DARK — We found this to be true last year, too, at Universal Studios — easy entrance, thinning crowds, no lines, cooler and exciting, with lights, music, special attractions and, usually, FIREWORKS. The hours from 4pm to 11pm (or closing) are THE BEST!

    On a related note, even though we couldn’t stay until After Dark because we had to get in early, before the park reached capacity (by approximately 10:30am), and we stayed and played hard all day long in the cool water and hot, hot sun, until we were all so exhausted and sunburned we had to crawl back to the hotel and order room service for dinner, after a quick trip out to CVS for sunburn relief products…AQUATICA ROCKS!!

  4. NASCAR is a quickly-obsessive, fatal attraction — Once we started track-touring, on NON-race days/weeks, in Talladega, Alabama, we were hooked. If you have NASCAR fans in the family, the tracks and attractions — again, on NON-race days/weeks — are (relatively) inexpensive, fun family entertainment. I fear any future Road Trip Family Vacations will have to be on the NASCAR track circuit — fortunately, we have THE BOOK.
  5. It will take a full week to recover from our Five-Day Family Road Trip.




NASCAR Road Trips – THE BOOK

Excerpt from CONFESSION: OUT OF THE NASCAR CLOSET:

I bought hubby a magazine I spotted at the grocery store, kind of as a joke: Athlon Sports RACING 2008 NASCAR PREVIEW – 10 Things to Watch: The Stories of 2008.
It’s now a well-thumbed fixture by the toilet in our “reading room.” He came home a day or two later with the coup de grace he found at the bookstore (no joke):

Rand McNally THE ULTIMATE NASCAR ROAD TRIP GUIDE:
The road tripper’s guide to all 31 NASCAR-sanctioned tracks —
Updated for the 2008 Racing Season!