With really sore butts and really full bellies (hearts too!)

The plan was to arrive by 6 pm, eat dinner on the road, arrive in time to hit the grocery and check in with time to hit a hour of water slides before bed.


The reality was checked in at 11 pm due to really long workday, trying to get last minute packing done, and having to take care of some must do items before getting out of town.

We made lemonade out of lemons as we opted to stay an extra night to make up for the lost time and mom talked the manager into matching our lower rate for peak Sat night. Mom rules.

 I had *hoped* that with a midnight bedtime they might sleep until say 8 am?  Nope, everyone up by 6:30 am.  We ate a breakfast of Sugar Mama cupcakes and hit the playground before the waterpark opened.

The kids literally went for the next 13 hours strong, despite my insistence that mom have a quite time.  Mom laid on the couch while the boys hung out reading a book while the boys playing cars on the balcony and reporting back the number times the ice cream truck appeared. Ian spent an enormous amount of time on this vacation in his underwear reading a monster truck magazine.  I'm not sure if he's three or a 40 year old Bubba.

We spent the afternoon on the beach, eating ice cream, digging then jumping in big holes, walking on the beach looking for shells and chasing birds (Ian only.) We went back to the water park after dinner where we oscillated between how many times we could slide without hurt butts and soaking in the hot tub.


Saturday we basically did the same thing, although the boys slept until 8:30, which was near awesome as mom went to bed at 10 pm.  Add it up people:  that is nearly 11 hours of sleep.  A freakin' record for me.

We ate more ice cream while swinging looking out of the ocean, played more hours on the beach, spent more hours on the slides and the "raky river- Ian".  That evening we ventured out to the strip where a very excited Ben and Ian loved that it was the first night of Bike Week.  Mom loved explaining the lack of clothing on the Harley Honeys.

We ate greasy burgers, played arcade games, and walked along the boardwalk.   At one point Ian thew his toy car, just won with his arcade tickets over a fence.  Guess who scaled the fence to retrieve?  From Ben, "nice job mom, you didn't even split your shorts!"

As we were sitting watching the Ferris wheel Saturday night, about to head  back and start packing up, I asked the boys what their #1 favorite thing?



Ian:  eating ice cream
Mom: sleeping
Ben: (without me prompting him!) spending the weekend with just you mom. (Ben wins the mother's day sentiment contest)

As we near 7, Ben is reaching that "not cool mom" when I grab his hand or run my fingers through his hair in public. I am all too aware that we are on the down side of thinking I am the coolest person he knows.

Even Ian, when given the choice follows Ben over mom's instructions in the cool department.  I can only offer food and clean underwear, but Ben offers killer monster truck race, naked wrestling, and bed jumping contests.  

It is times like the 72 hours we spent away from the day to day of work and school that made this the best mother's day gift I could ask for.

Thank you sweet Ben. Thank you sweet Ian, for making me your mom.  I love you both so, so much.