BlogHer Part One But Not Really

God, isn't BlogHer just the worst? First, we all bore our readers with ZOMG I'M GOING TO BLOGHER posts. Then we go to BlogHer and don't post anything because we're so busy and crazy or can't get on the hotel wifi or are basically, just drunk as shit the whole time. 

Then we come home and don't post anything because we're so tired out from BlogHer. Or if we do post anything, it's all, "ZOMG I'M SO TIRED FROM BLOGHER." And then followed by some random crappy photos we took with our phone that don't make any sense because you totally had to be there and stuff.

Ugh. I hate when bloggers do that.

***

This is a photo I took of my roommate taking a photo of the leftover room service cart full of half-eaten breakfast items that we pushed in of Jason Mayo and TwoBusy's room across the hall from ours. Because. I don't know. WE HAD TO.

The morning after Sparklecorn. Still covered in eye makeup, glitter, unicorn tattoos and a vague sense that I embarassed myself and future generations in a wide variety of ways, the least of which was climbing on a table and taking a bite of the four-foot-tall unicorn cake's ass. 

And I have absolutely no explanation for this one, except that it is one of like, 17 different blurry versions that I took. So clearly, whatever is happening here was important at the time.

*** 

So basically, nine-plus weeks of newborn-baby-related sleep deprivation (on top of however many weeks of pregnancy-related sleep deprivation), followed by two nights in a row of partying until 2:30 am local time (AKA 5:30 am your time, you stupid dumbass), all squished together with two cross-country flights in the span of 48 hours, then back home to the non-sleeping-through-the-night baby and minus any naps....carry the one....divide by the square root of the weight of all the swag you abandoned in your hotel room to make room for your electric breast pump...and...

Yeah. I'm pretty beat. I can kinda see through space and time right now. 

***

ALSO!

It fell out on Friday. Jason managed to stall on the tooth fairy thing until I got home so I could do it, which, in retrospect was not all that's cracked up to be, once you c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y slide your arm under the pillow and feel around for this tiny, practically hollow tooth and c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y remove it and then c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y put a ridiculous amount of hard-earned cash in its place...only to suddenly get really, REALLY grossed out by the nub of a tooth you're now holding in your hand that your husband is all, "DON'T THROW IT OUT, WE NEED TO SAVE THAT" and you then look around you at your life and realize that holy shit, there are like, 200 of these stupid things that are going to fall out and require you to touch them and then pay money for the privilege of doing so in your future. 

But still. I was awfully sorry to miss this one. 

(NOTE: Usually, this is the sort of photo I would crop to make sure none of y'all saw the giant bag of trash hanging out in the recyling bin in the back corner there, but since this was taken on Jason's watch I feel okay leaving in there. Even though I have been home since Saturday night and it is, in fact, still there. LAY OFF ME I'M TIRED.)

(NOTE NOTE: Jason took them both for haircuts while I was away, thus ending our summer of ragamuffin-where-is-that-child's-MOTHER-style chic.)

(NOTE NOTE NOTE: Today is our 13th wedding anniversary. Here, sweetie, I got you some kids.)

And Then Suddenly, BlogHer!

OH RIGHT THAT.

I leave tomorrow. I am not packed. I am not caught up with any of my deadlines for later in the week. I am undeniably sick with a cold and woke up this morning to an Attack Of The Eyebrow Zits, Like WTF I Never Get Eyebrow Zits But IT SURE DOES FIGURE. I am currently calling my hair salon every hour on the hour to inquire about cancellations because my roots are visible from space and my color has faded to a drab strawberry blonde that does not look particularly good on me, although it sure does coordinate with the zits around my eyebrow.

(!!!!ZITSWTFBBQ!!!!)

Yesterday I spent -- no exaggeration -- five solid hours on the phone attempting to rectify an emergency posters situation for Friday night's legendary BlogHer/MamaPop Sparklecorn shindig, as in we had no posters because of a communication kerfluffle, and I needed to order so many posters that my online shopping cart was crashing AllPosters.com. That's a crapton of posters, you guys. So five hours, it took to manually order each and every poster over the phone. Five hours of qualifying to a sales rep named Allison that yeah, okay, yes, I am ordering ANOTHER Justin Beiber poster but it's meant IRONICALLY. Now give me every freaking Lady Gaga poster you have, post haste!

I actually felt a pang of sadness when I hung up, because I was really going to miss her. 

Speaking of missing people...

He's not coming. He's just too little and the flight is just too long, and since I went back and forth and back and forth about my decision to take him or leave him or just stay home, work obligations be damned, I couldn't even coordinate with someone local to help me out on the flight, like I did the year I brought Ezra. My mom offered to come with me but flights hotel room money etc. blah. I am confident that breastfeeding is established enough that it will be okay once I return, and Jason is more than capable of keeping our children alive for a couple days on his own. So I am lugging my breast pump across the country for all of...oh, not even 48 hours, as I arrive tomorrow at five pm and will hop on the first plane out of Dodge on Saturday morning, probably while sobbing in a hormonal little puddle because my baaaaaaaaaybeeeee.

I actually don't want to talk about it anymore. It's obviously making my eyebrows break out. 

(Also not talking about the possibility of missing Noah's first tooth falling out while I'm gone and Ezra...well, Ezra just doing everything awesome and hilarious that Ezra always does, BUT I WILL BE MISSING IT.)

Standard BlogHer spiel: If you see me, for the love of God please say hi, though be prepared to be hugged. I am really good with blog/commenter names and Twitter handles but kind of shitty with faces, so please don't think I'm an asshole if I squint at your attendee badge for a minute or two while my feeble hamsterbrain makes the connection. Or if I leak breastmilk on you. Though I promise to take every possibly precaution to prevent that from happening. 

And Sparklecorn is Friday night at 9 pm, no RSVP required (HOORAY), so please come because it is going to be insanely awesome. DJ Skribble. Drinks. Dancing. A cake that will blow your mind. And free Justin Beiber posters at the end of the night, if you're lucky. 

Like Sand In A Swim Diaper...

So. We're going to the beach tomorrow. I have been quietly and not-so-quietly freaking out about this trip for months now.

Two adults. Three children. One challenging five year old. One tempestuous two year old. One BABY. Five days. Two boobs, one minivan, 156 miles, three hours, two bedrooms, one bathroom, seventeen million pounds of luggage and not nearly enough bottles of wine. 

Right now I'm packing. I'm kind of like this:

There's just so much crap to drag along now, and it's up to me to remember every last bit of it, because Jason likes to pack as if we're heading for a stint on Survivor instead of comfy family vacation. A bathing suit and some rice! A toothbrush!  Sunscreen if you're fancy!

If I asked Noah to pack for the beach he'd toss one shoe, two red t-shirts and 500 Lego pieces into a suitcase and call it a day. Ezra might stick with the task a little longer, but would probably pack a lot of plastic food, a dozen stuffed animals and an outgrown Halloween costume.

And don't tell Ike, but he's pretty much the most useless one of them all. God. 

So I'm here ping-ponging around a disorganized mental list of everything five distinct human beings could possibly require at the beach, like clothes underwear pajamas diapers pull-ups burp rags bathing suits sunscreen more burp rags toys DVDs toiletries towels swaddling blankets travel crib bottles?? macaroni and cheese granola bars peanut butter sippy cups Kindle Tylenol wipes onesies beach tent hats shoes shampoo oh FUCK THIS LET'S JUST PACK THE WHOLE HOUSE.

Status update! Now I'm like this:

This is going to be so fun! Priceless memories here we come! Please to pray for our survival thank you. 

Back From the Wilderness

Whoa. 

I've been away so long that Typepad logged me out of my blog publishing-y thing. And I couldn't remember my password. Or the real, actual word I'm thinking of when I call it my "blog publishing-y thing." 

So we went to New York! It was fantastic. I think I finally succeeded in gaining a million pounds, thanks to Travelocity and Restaurant Week and Mario Batali's Eataly where I ate pasta and then had a cheese plate and more pasta for dessert. Or maybe that was considered pre-dessert. We were there for like, four hours and didn't stop eating once.

That was also where I spent a good 45 minutes staring at some poor random guy a few seats down from us at the crudo counter that I SWEAR was on an episode of Law & Order or something, only to realize once he got up and I was actually sitting directly next to Andrew Zimmern.

You will all be terribly proud of me, I think, for managing to NOT start pointing and shouting "BIZARRE FOODS! Hey! You're BIZARRE FOODS! What up, BIZARRE FOODS. I TOTALLY CAN'T THINK OF YOUR REAL NAME RIGHT NOW, BIZARRE FOODS."

Jason, always the bad influence, was all, "Do it. Go say hi. Buy him a glass of wine. Totally dork the hell out. It'll be funny. You can write about it on your blog."

You know, counter seating is totally underrated. It's really easy to kick people in the shins at that angle. 

Anyway. Bizarre Foods Andrew Zimmern remains blissfully ignorant of my entire existence, as God probably intended. We were supposed to come home on Thursday, but then it snowed, and we had to decide whether we felt like spending a million hours watching the lousy-with-delays departures board at Penn Station, or like staying in New York another night and eating some more instead. 

In summary: I am fat now. It feels real good.

Also: BAM. 22 weeks pregnant. 

I swear, five days ago everybody I met was like, "You're pregnant? What? And you're HOW far along? You're barely even showing!"

Behold, the power of cheese, you guys. 

We finally got home on Saturday, only to find that our house had no electricity. It went out sometime very early on Thursday morning, in basically a total repeat of the LAST time we took a vacation in the dead of winter and then returned to a Snowpaccalaccalypse and an extended power outage. This time, luckily, we missed most of it, as our power was restored after we left to go kill a couple hours at the mall, where it was warm and well-lit and not awful and we could at least surf the online real estate listings to see if we could afford to move someplace else that wasn't so prone losing electricity for days whenever like, a goddamn bird decides to nest in a load-bearing tree next to our power lines. (SPOILER ALERT: No, dammit.)

Anyway, I know I'm forgetting about a million things I wanted to tell you about, but I really need to get back into the flow of things and posting over at the still shiny and brand spanking new Moxiebird and Mamapop and Alphamom and do SOMETHING about the four frillion unread emails I let pile up last week -- though at this point, that "SOMETHING" is probably going to involve the "delete all unread emails" function and praying that I didn't miss anything too important. But then! Back to life and business and blogging as usual, with exciting kid-related photo essays and whining and probably more talk about cheese. God, cheese. It's just so awesome, you know?

Gnome Encounters, Part II

DORK ALERT. 

The Gnome recommended the cheese plate, but I wasn't convinced that would be cheesy enough. So...fake pose time!

Also, for the record: MoMA is at 11 West 53rd Street, in case you find yourself at the mercy of the one cab driver in Manhattan who has apparently never heard of the Museum of Modern Art and attempts to drop you off a couple blocks away instead.

"I'm pretty sure that's it," he said, pointing at a random storefront.

"I'm pretty sure that's a Duane Reade," I said. 

I was right, but we got out of the cab anyway, because after pulling up MoMA's website to track down the exact address, I learned that it was closed on Tuesdays, and thus, yesterday. Because we excel at planning. Or this was just another attempt by the universe to save us from our excruciating lameness, since we decided to go to the museum in the first place to specifically see an exhibition about kitchen cabinets. 

And today, provided we are not foiled by Snowmaicesleetcapocalyptico 2011 or whatever the weather is doing outside right now (I have not looked out the window yet, our hotel room is still a dark closed-up tomb of sleeping the hell in),  we're going to visit what is, essentially, an extra fancy food court. Bring your cameras! There's stuff to eat and stuff! Then we have one more Restaurant Week dinner with the Gnome tonight (but I'm no longer nervous, we go way back now) and an Upright Citizen's Brigade show. Oh, and probably another nap in there somewhere. I'd blame the nap on being five months pregnant but you'd all know I was lying.  

Gnome Encounters

Oh, hi there. 

FROM NEW YORK CITY!

*awkwardly makes some imprecise hand gesture that I'm not sure actually means anything*

Jason and I have escaped the clutches of our germ-encrusted children for a little getaway this week, where we can expose ourselves to culture and an entirely new city's worth of viruses and bacteria. Especially since it is, according to some very reputable cab drivers we've spoken to, approximately negative 57 degrees outside and you are risking iciclehood just by walking outside.

We arrived yesterday. So far we've:

1) Learned about the effect of cold weather on Amtrak trains, which seems to be similar to the effect of snow, ice, rain, electrical storms, wind, understaffing, overcrowding and/or cows standing around on the track. In other words: DELAYS. LOTS OF 'EM.

3) Checked into hotel.

4) Stripped hotel bed and inspected for bedbugs.

5) Found no bedbugs.

6) Ate $8 container of hotel Pringles.

7) Took a nap.

8) Had dinner with my sister and brother-in-law.

9) Bought $1.77 replacement for hotel Pringles at drugstore.

10) Slept some damn more.

Today should be every bit as exciting. And more! We're actually here with a little help from Travelocity for NYC Restaurant Week (and my buddy Holly). (Oh my God, do you see what I just did there? THAT WASN'T EVEN INTENTIONAL. I'm sure that doesn't make it any less tired and groanworthy for Holly, though.) This means -- and I am not lying -- I get to meet the Roaming Gnome today and talk to him before our meals.

I'm actually kind of stressing about this: What does one SAY to the Roaming Gnome? What are appropriate topics of conversation? What should I wear? What if I do that awful thing where I devolve into a giggly starstruck moron around anyone vaguely famous or who has ever appeared on television, finding out too late that my easily-impressed self also does that around wisecracking corporate mascots? 

Maybe I should start with a shower and some coffee. Will write more later, post-Gnome, provided my fingers don't just freeze the hell off or we get lost in an urban snowdrift or something. 

Why We Probably Never Get Invited Places

This story requires some background. In fact, I'd say this story is probably a good 95% background. This is the kind of story I would submit to my creative writing professor in college and get back with the words YES, AND....???? scrawled after the ending because the denouement was basically me running out of time at library that morning and then pretending that the unsatisfying, abrupt ending was ON PURPOSE, like even the WHOLE POINT, god, nobody GETS ME, it was DEEP and SOCIALLY-COMMENTATING-Y.

Anyway! It is true, I was very misunderstood. Now let's all move on and pretend that this is a vaguely accurate rendering of the great state of Pennsylvania:

If you believe the original boundary-deciding people all had raging meth habits, I think it kind of works.

Now, I spent the first 19 years or so of my life in this general part of Pennsylvania:

Basically, if you picture New Jersey as the head and shoulders of some old dude in profile (AND I BET YOU DO NOW), I grew up tucked directly under his chin. Jason also spent a good chunk of his adolescence in the same area, only in the town where M. Night Shyamalan filmed Signs instead of the my neighborhood's claim to fame, which was the largest used car dealership in the state. Neither of these accomplishments have held up very well in recent years, what with the economy and The Happening. 

Point is, we like to think we know our way around that area pretty well. 

So when my dear long-time friend Temerity Jane sent us an invitation to her PA-based wedding -- complete with assurances that it was SO OKAY if we didn't feel like making the trek -- I waved off her protests and insisted that it was no big thang at all. I love weddings! And this wedding was like, 30 minutes from our parents' homes, because everything is 30 minutes from our parents' homes. Philly. The neck-hole parts of New Jersey. Malls. Amish people.

I thought the wedding was 30 minutes away because the invitation said: South Abington. Abington! I know Abington! I had friends who lived in Abington. The high school was in Jason's tennis league; they'd played them all the time. 30 or 45 minutes away, tops. 

Well, technically the invitation said South Abington Township. But Pennsylvania is literally crawling with random areas that like to declare themselves townships, much like Pennsylvania is not technically a state so much as a commonwealth and I STILL don't understand what that's all about, even after having to take a Pennsylvania history course in high school. And the south part, well, sure. Abington must have a...south...type...part. Right? So we'll give ourselves the full 45 minutes, then.  

See. EASY. We just had to go...down and to the left a little.

Oh, ho ho ho. And a ha ha ha.

The day of the wedding started off badly for us. I forgot the invitation on our fridge, thus leaving behind the actual address, thus having to be the complete asshole who sends desperate Twitter DMs to a BRIDE on her WEDDING DAY, mere HOURS before the CEREMONY.

(Jason suggested we just drive to Abington and see if any church or hotel names sounded familiar, because you know, how many weddings could there be?) 

Luckily, I managed to get the address before we arrived at Jason's parents house, where we quickly ditched the kids and changed our clothes and hopped back into the car. Abington, ho! We had exactly an hour before the ceremony would begin. We were good. As was my hair, for a brief few seconds in time.

I entered the address into our GPS and...

"Why is this thing saying Abington is 120 miles away?" 

"Uh. That's not right."

"Two hours? What the?"

Suddenly, it all became perfectly, horribly clear. Abington and South Abington Township had absolutely nothing to do with each other, besides some really fucking uncreative place-naming at some point. 

Now, don't get me wrong. That part of Pennsylvania is absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous. The views from the mountains roads -- especially this time of year -- are like stepping into every picture-perfect postcard of idealized autumn colors you have ever seen. It's a perfect spot for a wedding or weekend away.

But unfortunately, once you realize that you are suddenly TWO HOURS AWAY from a wedding ceremony that is due to begin in ONE HOUR, and that nothing -- short of rocket-jet-packs or some sort of PA Turnpike Wormhole -- is going to help you make that wedding on time...well, the beautiful fall scenery can go fuck itself, you know? 

Particularly if, on your way to the PA Turnpike, you hit every single construction detour or accident along the way. (One major road was closed completely because someone hit a deer, and the only way around the mess involved a ONE-LANE DIRT ROAD.) By the time we hit the seventeenth or fortieth detour because one quaint little town was having a craft fair on the ONLY ACTUAL THROUGH STREET THERE WAS, I was pretty much ready to kill the entire wiggly jagged side of Pennsylvania with my bare hands. 

The GPS told us it would be a two-hour drive. It took us two-and-a-half. We did indeed miss the ceremony by a good 50 miles, and by the time we finally arrived 1) my hair looked like total ass, and 2) I was completely and utterly paranoid that we would inadvertently walk into the reception at the PRECISE MOMENT the DJ or whoever was doing the whole, "And now, presenting for the very first time! Mr. and Mrs....wait, who the hell are those assholes?"

We crept in, literally peeking timidly around corners before stepping out, and did successfully manage to join the other guests with a minimum of OH HI WE'RE INSANELY LATE AND DUMB fanfare. 

I completely owned up to our dumbassity, though, rather than bullshit my way through conversations like, "The ceremony was beautiful! I especially liked the part where you...uh, walked in! And then said I do!" I understood why our attendance had taken several other guests by surprise, you know, being willing to drive ALL THAT WAY AND STUFF. Because...yeah. Okay. I see what you're saying now. 

The reception was awesome and there were all-you-can-eat mashed potatoes with cheese and crumbled bacon toppings. I ate a lot of mashed potatoes and two pieces of cake. I even got Jason out on the dance floor for a slow dance and TJ had ever-so-helpfully stocked the ladies' room with a basket of toiletry essentials, including a package of bobby pins that allowed me to salvage at least a little dignity out of my hair. 

And then we got in the car. And drove back. And everybody learned something very important about maps, but nothing about finishing up stories with any sort of actual point. 

THE END!

BlogHer, Part One

Oh, hi. I'm at BlogHer. It's exhausting. It's awesome. I just had to get talked off a ledge by a really nice lady in the Hilton Package Room, who cheerfully looked at her computer and was all, "Yes, we have three packages waiting for you." And I was like, 'THREE? THAT'S IT? OH SHIT. OH SHIT." And then I yanked out my laptop to show three dozen or so Sparklecorn-related delivery confirmations like, "BUT I HAVE EVIDENCE! LOOK AT ALL THESE FIREFOX TABS!" 

And then she assured me that you know what? Their computer system is kind of shit. Everything is there, after all. 

As usual, BlogHer is bigger than ever, sponsor-y-er than ever, and more overwhelming than ever. I had one of those panicked moments yesterday when I resorting to Fake Texting on my phone in a hallway just to mask my sudden terror at realizing that there was no one around who I knew, or who knew me, or who seemed relatively open to small talk with a stranger, and I didn't really have anywhere in particular to be and Twitter's gone Fail Whale and OH WOW I FEEL CONSPICUOUS AND AWKWARD. 

So I pretended to tap on my phone for awhile. Then I went back up to my room and stared at the wallpaper.

BEHOLD. I AM A WIDELY-READ BLOGGER IN A SMALL SUBSET OF A SPECIALIZED NICHE IN THE FEMALE SEGMENT OF THE BLOGOSPHERE WHO CANNOT FEND FOR HERSELF IN A CONFERENCE HALLWAY.

The only photos I've taken so far:

1) Riding in a rickshaw with Loralee. If someone would like to cast us as the stars in some predictably adorable romantic comedy about two friends starting over in love and life in the Big City, during which we have many wacky adventures that MAY or MAY NOT include figuring out that miniskirts and rickshaws are NOT THE BEST COMBINATION, feel free to use this photo as the promotional poster:

 

2) Broken blood vessels all across my shoulders from the weight of the swag bags. It's all fun and free shampoo samples until some pasty girl gets hurt:

 

The best parties so far, as usual, have been the swag-free gatherings, chock-full of many (but never all, or even enough) of my favorite, favorite people. Even the one I got hurt at, when Catherine and I decided to launch into a very elaborate interpretative ballet routine while other Mamapop writers sang Total Eclipse of the Heart on the karaoke machine, which ended with both of us flat on the floor with TREMENDOUS DOWNWARD FORCE, but apparently there is some kind of dance-off planned for later to determine who we get to lay the blame for that particular disaster on, so I guess the full details will have to wait. Plus, I have to pee and you would not believe the lines for the ladies' around these parts, you guys. 

P.S. SPARKLECORN COMETH! TONIGHT! 8 PM EAST BALLROOM, WHEREVER THE FUCK THAT IS. OMFG I AM SO EXCITED I COULD PUKE. 

Trees, Knees and God-Knows-What Else (Nonsensical Bullet Point Edition)

I am feeling much better today, thank you. 

Not so much better, mind you, that I am capable of delivering a super-coherent blog entry or anything. I've yet to venture beyond Saltines, white rice and strawberry Jell-O, which means the best I can do for you today are some semi-deranged blood-sugary bullet points. Aren't you excited NOW.

1. Remember the tree that fell down after The Tornado That Apparently Happened While We Were In The Mall? This is what it looks like today:

 

IT'S ALIVE!!!!

No, actually, it's really not. A crew came by last week, hacked off all the branches, removed a couple of smaller trees that this one had taken out on the way down, and then just...propped it back up. And left it. You can still see the separation all around it on the ground, like a giant Christmas tree skirt, the only indication that this tree is NOT ACTUALLY ATTACHED TO ANYTHING, like it used to be. You know, like it was on the day it BLEW THE FUCK OVER. 

Things That Could Possibly Go Very Wrong Here:

     a) Another storm.

     b) Another EARTHQUAKE.

     c) Some goddamned wind. 

     d) Passing texting/drunk/mascara-applying drivers and/or bicyclists.

     e) Birds. Fat ones.

     f) Vicious regenerating zombie trees of the apocalypse.

Things That Could Possibly Go Very Right:

    a) FRIENDLY regenerating zombie trees of the apocalypse.

Moving on.

2) I got a mosquito bite that looks like the devil. Or possibly a very angry bull.

 

Oh, come on. Don't pretend like you don't see it. Just ignore my alarmingly knobby knees and turn your computer screen upside down. It'll come.

3) Robots, take note. You are NOT WELCOME at Noah's summer camp.

 

4) Blogher. I KNOW. The pre-conference freak-out posts on other blogs start earlier and earlier each year, usually ending just in time for me to realize that:

     a) Oh shit, it's Blogher! and

     b) There are Christmas trees at the mall already, MY LANDS.

In honor of our 12th wedding anniversary, I am dragging Jason (hereforeafterever known as Poor Jason) with me this year, and to several of the parties. If you see or approach us, please to be prepared for:

     a) Me to hug you, only in a horribly spastic way that might trigger your instinct to protect your head, and...

     b) Jason to look at you with wide eyes full of terror, and possibly slip you a note promising you one (1) slightly used purse dog or child (your choice) in exchange for safe passage OUT OF THIS CIRCLE OF SOCIAL HELL.

"But it's our ANNIVERSARY," I said to him several months ago. "We CAN'T spend it apart. Blogher will be FUN. You can learn about ISSUES. And MONETIZING. And WOMEN." 
 
I won that argument, so he's coming. Poor Jason.

5) I don't really have a number five. Here is a picture of my baby going down a slide.

I feel like there used to be a lot more slide, and I don't quite know where it went. 

Oh Hey What Up?

The beach. The beach is what up. Just FYI.

 

Point the first: My children -- my lousy, wretched, terrible children -- have insisted on waking up at 6:30 am every morning of this mini-vacation, and for that I am ready to...uh...I don't even know what I'm ready to do to them, I'M TOO TIRED FOR RETRIBUTION.

 

Point the second: Shovels. Shovels as big as toddlers. 

 

Madness!

 

Point the third: We're smuggling about half the beach home in our children's thigh rolls and underwear pockets. Don't tell anyone. 

 

Point the fourth: We're leaving today, so I better get back out there with my big-ass shovel.