The Journey of Parenthood…

Labor Day Weekend

It’s become a yearly tradition that over Labor Day weekend we go away with the whole Parker clan somewhere. We’ve gone to Mr. Rusty and Mrs. Charlotte’s condo in Alabama, Panama City Beach, and Jacksonville Beach. This year they decided we’d be going to St. Augustine Beach and staying at an RV/trailer park thing. Mr. Rusty loves his RV and it’s a good chance for him to use it. I’ve never been to a place like that and it was…an experience.

I read an article recently about how annoyed people get when they read people’s Facebook/blog and hear them complain about vacationing…any vacation is a good vacation right??? So I’m going to try my best not to annoy anyone with complaints, we had a wonderful trip – but this was our least favorite Labor Day since we’ve started the Parker tradition. Zach and I feel like the point of a big family vacation is to be able to spend time together and the way this place was set up meant we spent a lot of time apart. We had our own little trailer thing, Courtney’s fam had their own, and everyone else stayed in the RV.

I know most of you probably are thinking I didn’t like the trailer thing b/c I’m “high maintenance” or something, but honestly that’s not the case! We stay in DIRT cheap hotels all the time…heck I’ve stayed in one that literally had bullet holes in the lamp shades and blood stains on the walls. The reason we didn’t like the trailer set up was space. I know that doesn’t make sense because it had a nice sized living room and a full kitchen, but the bedroom was MEGA small and it made life very hard with trying to figure out sleeping arrangements for Kye. Our first night there was no joke probably the worst nights sleep of my LIFE. Sure, having a new born is rough but this was worse because I felt like it was my fault we were having problems plus I am PREGNANT.

The room was so small that our bed was pretty much touching Kye’s tent. He slept fine when he first went down but when we came to bed at 11ish every move we made woke him up. Poor thing. He was miserable. We were miserable. From midnight on we were pretty much awake. I spent a lot of time laying on the tile floor trying to comfort him. Let’s not forget that this was the week of all my pregnancy scare stuff so I was worrying about Blitzen while worrying about Kye too! Zach had to get up at 6:20 to get ready to go golfing and when he got up Kye thought it was time for him to get up too so I just let him. I was BEYOND exhausted!!!

With all my worries about the pregnancy that week I actually debated not even going on the trip but hated the thought of missing Kye on the beach for the last time this summer…well I missed it that morning anyway! I was too out of it to even function. I stuck in a movie and slept while Kye watched it and ate breakfast then Mrs. Charlotte came by and she took him to the beach while I slept some more. Zach actually MOVED the entire box spring and mattress out to the living room so Kye would be able to sleep in the bedroom for the rest of the trip and we’d sleep in the living room.

You can tell how close we were to Kye!

living room turned into our bedroom

With none of us getting any sleep Friday night, Saturday was a rough day. I rested until Kye got back from the beach then put him down early for nap and went and layed out at the pool with Casey. Then we all went to the beach for a couple hours that afternoon before getting pizzas and watching the Georgia game that night in the RV. Duh, I didn’t watch the UGA game, but Courtney, Casey, Mrs. Charlotte and I looked at wedding stuff instead 😉

I probably took the least amount of pictures during this vacation than I’ve EVER taken on a trip! Here’s a few I snapped on the beach on Saturday afternoon:

Courtney and Payton

Colt

buds!

typical brother and sister – throwing sand at each other

Payton with her daddy

the thing to do that weekend was build “sand castles”

My favorite part of the whole trip was actually Zach and how SWEET he was to me. He was so attentive and really took care of me. I barely had to lift a finger and it was so wonderful. It made me really feel so much love and happiness from him which, as a woman, is important! Saturday night we went back to our trailer to put Kye to bed. After he was down I assumed we’d go right back to the RV with everyone but Zach suggested we just enjoy some “us time” together. We were going to watch The Office (duh!) but we’re on the last episode of Season 5 and didn’t want to not be able to finish it so we decided instead to look up baby names together. It was only for about 30 min but I ate up every second of that time!!! I LOVED it AND we found a name too 🙂 So if Blitzen is a boy I’ll always cherish the memory of us choosing his name.

Sunday morning we all met up to have church on the beach which was really pretty. We enjoyed the beach for a couple more hours and for the last time this summer! After Kye went down for his nap Zach and I went to the Outlets. We had to get Kye some shoes (he’s got small yet fat feet and pretty much can only fit into Stride Rite which are MEGA expensive so you can buy them 2 for the price of 1 at the outlet!), I needed a couple new bras, and a maternity bathing suit (duh – I don’t know why I hadn’t already bought one, I only have ONE suit that fits me!!!!). We had SUCH a great time together just the two of us. We shopped and laughed and got some yummy snacks. We weren’t really in a rush to get back but got back in time for a cookout. I was straight up exhausted. Lack of sleep, a morning at the beach, an afternoon of walking will do that to a pregnant girl! Especially one that’s supposed to REST. Again, Zach was very sweet and took care of my every need. By Monday morning we were ready to get back home 🙂

Here’s pics from our last beach outing for the season:

G-Mama and Kye

more castle building

Goodbye beach! See you next year!!!

Emily Parker
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