Daddy's Home!

Well, I certainly vented shared my feelings yesterday didn't I? It really wasn't a horrible day at all, just sometimes get my focus in the wrong place, I think. I didn't mention it before, but Brock had to go to San Diego for a few days for meetings and today we got to pick him up. I'm so glad.

It is a Saturday, pancake day, and today I made them on the griddle accessory on our BBQ outside and I cooked some bacon out there too. I hate cooking bacon inside the trailer, but it's sure tasty with pancakes and we didn't have the trapped in bacon-y odors the rest of the day so that was a good thing.

Brock's flight didn't get in until just after 6 pm. We knew we were going to go get some groceries and do some a LOT of laundry and the kids have been wanting to spend some Target money that they received for Christmas (Thanks Uncles Brett & Paul, the e-gift cards worked great!). We needed to do the grocery shopping last, just before we picked up Brock. I was really trying to figure out how to schedule these tasks, avoid Mardi Gras revelers at a parade in downtown Pensacola, and be sure to pick up Brock on time. Since the campground is quite a ways out on a skinny, long island and over a toll bridge, there wouldn't be any checking back in at the trailer in between. I didn't want to leave Heidi at the trailer alone all day either so we decided to wait around the trailer, taking her for lots of little walks, until after 1:30 and then we set out.

We had not gone east on the little spit of land called Santa Rosa Island that Fort Pickens is located on and I was curious about what was down there, so we started off our list of errands by doing what I really wanted to do which was explore a little. We drove through all the touristy area that is Pensacola Beach, Margaritaville Resort, and several restaurants and little shops, lots of vacation homes and condos. When we reached kind of the end of the developed part, I thought I'd better turn around and head back to the main intersection where you go over the toll bridge to get into Pensacola. The little beach access parking lot I pulled into was in the middle of what felt like desert, sand dunes on both sides of the road. I glance towards the gulf side and I see the beach below.

This qualified for a minor detour. We parked and got out of the car and walked on the very soft sand and picked up a few shells and generally just enjoyed the gorgeous moment.

Phew! I needed that!

Next we drove to a first laundromat which was located right in that little touristy area, but a glance at it and I rejected it. There was no open parking and it was tiny and in a row of other shops. Not a place to plunk down with my four kids and four loads of laundry. Next, I plugged Target into my phone's navigation and headed to a store that was located on the same side of town as the airport. I took the advice of a ranger that I'd spoken with earlier at the park and avoided the downtown Pensacola area since we weren't interested in the parade. One hiccup with my phone where it locked up and had to be restarted enroute and it successfully navigated us right to Target. We all enjoyed taking a look at lots of stuff and people watching a bit and we made our selections and headed out to find a laundromat.

I found one on google maps that wasn't too far away and still kept us close to the airport and we pointed the car in that direction. It was chancy because two of three reviews online rated it poorly, but the third was excellent so I decided to take a look. For some reason, my navigation on this one kept wanting me to make a u-turn and was really confusing me. Finally, I pushed past this one intersection, using common sense, and it quit saying that and we drove right to the laundry. I probably wasted a good twenty minutes circling the area though and trying not to get stressed. The biggest plus of this place was that it was only 5 minutes from the airport.

We started our four loads and I realized that there was no way we were going to get the groceries before picking up Brock because somehow, it was five already! Brock had been texting that he'd had to check his bag since the flight was so full so he'd be a little longer than originally anticipated, but while the last load still had seven minutes on the dryer, I got the text that he was there and had his bag and was ready for pick up. Aaak! I hated to keep him waiting at the airport when we'd been dying for him to get back to us. But in the end, he really only had to wait about 10 minutes and all the clothes were pretty dry, which often doesn't happen when we do laundry at all the various places we do.

We drove up to the arrivals area and he was sitting on a bench outside and came and hopped into the car. We checked and there was a Walmart within a few minutes of there too, so we all headed there to do our shopping. I like the way shopping goes on this trip in some ways. We are using an app on our phones called Cozi to keep our shopping lists and Brock and I can both log into it to add stuff as we realize we need it. Then, at the store, he can go one direction with one or two kids and I can go another with the other kids and we can get done pretty fast that way. As we get stuff, we check it off on the app. As long as there is a data signal, the lists will sync up and we can see what we still need to get. I still have to watch at the checkstand that we didn't duplicate anything, but for the most part it works great. Time before last, we almost bought two gallons of milk. That would've been disastrous for the milk since our fridge is tiny. ;o)

After shopping, we headed to Steak n Shake for a quick dinner and then back to the trailer to put away the groceries and get to bed. Brighton realized that he didn't know where his wallet was when we got back. He thought it may have fallen out in the Walmart parking lot. :o( We told him to be sure he'd looked very thoroughly and then call Walmart in the morning to see if anyone turned it in.