Six years ago this month, Bill returned from a year long deployment to Kosovo. He took off for about a month, and we went on a vacation to Disney World, which is just about the stupidest thing to do. The stress of his return and the stress of traveling with 4 children under the age of 6 combined to make for a terrible time.

If you ask the kids, it was the best trip ever. They don’t know that I called about an early return every day, but the additional cost kept me from doing it.

One thing we learned was that our children were incapable of behaving in restaurants. This is not a good thing to discover when you are spending a week in a hotel room with no kitchen.

Upon our return home, we instituted a no-restaurant policy for at least 6 months. It might even have been a year. I know we moved a year later, and I know we ate out. That may have been when we finally let them see the inside of a McDonald’s. Then we tried a place like Denny’s. They liked eating in restaurants, so they were motivated to be good.

Fast forward to this vacation, which intentionally was low-key and in a cottage with a kitchen. Eating out is now pretty expensive for our crew, and in this resort town we’ve noticed that restaurants automatically add 18% gratuity for parties of 8 or more. I have enjoyed our quiet and simple meals in this cottage, but we did budget for a few meals out, mostly at the beginning of our trip, but also last night, our final evening here.

Every time we have eaten out this trip, the children have been very well behaved. Mary, of course, stands on her seat and squirms around. And we do have to remind them all to talk quietly, even though adults in restaurants can be pretty loud. But they’ve been good. And they’ve been noticed. Every single time we have eaten out, at least one elderly person has stopped by our table to praise them. Last night, we had two.

I reminded Bill about our no eating out policy of 6 years ago. And before bed, I gathered the children to tell them how wonderful they’ve been. They’ve come a long way.

Attention military folks: there are huge savings at Ripley’s Aquarium in Myrtle Beach. My family of 8 would normally have spent nearly $88 to get in the door. With the military discount, it cost us just over $23. Yes, that’s correct. We SAVED over $64 with our military IDs.

Now THAT makes a 6 month deployment totally worth it.

Yes, that is sarcasm.

Ripley’s Aquarium is definitely worth $23 and an hour or two of your day. We loved the glass tunnel that makes it look like you are walking underwater. Nice as the place is, though, I do not think I would have enjoyed it so much if I had to pay full price.

My children, despite their youth, are hardly affecting the average age of the local population. At Mass on Sunday, standing room only, I asked the octogenarian next to me how they managed in the summer with all the vacationers. “Oh, the snowbirds are gone by then. It’s actually less crowded.”

This has me pondering the transient lifestyles of the retired. How do I sign up for that?

It’s not that I don’t want to settle down and stop moving. There are plenty of advantages to that. It’s just that I haven’t figured out WHERE. I like plenty of places. But I haven’t found The Place. It. Where I would want to build a dream home and plant a vegetable garden and blackberry bushes and maybe own some chickens. Animals, though, are such a hassle if you want to run off and spend a month with your daughter and her newborn. Maybe I just need to live next door to a friendly farmer.

I suppose, if I hopped around from one resort cottage to another, I would miss my things and my style of decorating. Of course, that lifestyle would enable me to practice detachment. All I would truly own would be in the trunk of some two seater sportster. Can one be detached and own a BMW?

I guess most snowbirds own the homes they go between. That would mean picking TWO places to build a dream home and plant berries and two friendly farmers to live next door to. I don’t think finding two perfect places is any easier than finding one.

I guess right now it’s a good thing Uncle Sam is funding my quest to find paradise on earth. I suspect, in the end, I will conclude that such a place does not exist, and I will have to make do with whatever is before me.

I take an odd joy in that my winter wool pea coat with Thinsulate lining has sea shells in its pockets and is covered with sand.

A few weeks ago, I learned the hard way that if I type a blog post on my iTouch I better post it before switching to another app. I didn’t do this, and lost the post. Hence, my post from earlier today which I did not have the time to proofread. I hope there are no errors.

Last Thursday, Bill took the older girls and the dog down to GA to get the keys to the house. I spent two days feeling like I was missing my left arm. Bill put the dog in a kennel and drove up here on Saturday with the girls. He left again last night. I miss him, of course, but there isn’t the same ominous absence as there is when one of the children is away.

After Bill left last night, I went to the bathroom. I was in there for 3 or 4 minutes and the whole time the kids were running around like lunatics. My only thought was gratitude that we weren’t in a hotel room, but rather a stand alone cottage.

When I came out, I headed in their direction to yell at them, but was stopped by the ringing of the cottage phone. I thought it was odd. It was the front desk wanting to be sure everything was ok. Seems they had received 4 phone calls in 2 minutes from our cottage with only screaming at our end.

Nice.

Back in August, I made reservations for us to vacation at Myrtle Beach this week. I did not know at the time that we would be in the middle of a PCS. Thank goodness SC is between VA and GA.

We are staying in a 3 bedroom cottage that is owned by Wyndham resorts. It is gorgeous. After a week of eating leftovers, take out, drive thru, or sponging off generous friends, I was thrilled to go to the grocery store last night for food for the week to cook in a real kitchen and to eat off real dinnerware.

I made the arrangements for the cottage via the Armed Forces Vacation Club. If you are military, I highly recommend it. I think the place was $400 for the week, and they routinely offer $300 per week specials if you have flexibility. I paid for it when I made the reservation, so it feels like we’re staying for free.

This place would be fabulous in the summer, but the quiet, low-key atmosphere is perfect for us right now. The only thing missing is my husband who is in GA waiting for the truck to show up. He should return tomorrow.