It’s so hard to settle back into the day to day routine, even if I’m away from it for just a few days. I miss the ocean, but damn I do not miss the sand. After my last dip into the ocean, I rinsed off under an outdoor shower that our motel had, then went into the motel pool for a bit, then showered more thoroughly, and then washed my bathing suit when we got home on Monday evening. Yesterday I put on my bathing suit, and when I took it off a few hours later there was STILL SAND IN IT?! Ugh.
I’m feeling so tired today. And yesterday, too. I went to bed not long after midnight Monday night, slept until 10am Tuesday morning, and still felt tired throughout the day. Rinse and repeat today, only I was in bed by 11:30pm last night! Eh, I guess it’s just all the running around, and all of the swimming around. We took the kids to the local pool yesterday evening, since now that Ryan has discovered how much fun the water is he can’t get enough of it (seriously, before his nap he brought his swim trunks and a swim diaper to me and told me, “Sim, Mah-yee! Go sim!”), and wow, I didn’t realize how much swimming I had done down in Ocean City until I attempted to swim across the pool. Normally I can do it, no problem. Last night I was exhausted 3/4 of the way there.
Speaking of Ryan, he really surprised and impressed me with how well he did at the beach. My motto with him was to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Well, we certainly got the best! He stayed with us, listened to us, and didn’t wander. I brought along travel ID bracelets that featured his name, the fact that he is autistic and our cell phone numbers on them, and made sure he wore one on his ankle at all times (Alyssa also had ID bracelets to wear), but thankfully they never had to be used, because he never wandered away from us to get lost in the first place! It’s reassuring to see that Ryan did so much better than he did last year, which means that he will (hopefully) do even better next year!
Last night Dan and I looked up some local tattoo shops. Believe it or not, Dan, totally wholesome white-bread Dan (inside joke of ours), wants a tattoo. He’s been talking about those wraparound tribal bands for the past year, and while we were down at the beach he got a Henna one done:
Rawr. I like lust love it. Of course, he’s going to work on a custom design, since the best tattoos are the ones that represent you individually. He’s even thinking about having my name hidden somewhere in the design. ♥
Let’s see… what else… oh! Sunburn! I do NOT have it. Thank god. I was super vigilant with applying and re-applying, both on myself and on the kids. Unfortunately, I listened to my mom when she recommended the super expensive Neutrogena spray-on sunscreen for the kids, and even though I used it as directed and re-applied, their upper arms burned. 
Dan’s ankles and feet also burned thanks to the sucktacular spray-on stuff. Fortunately, I quickly learned from THAT mistake and switched back to the regular Coppertone and Banana Boat creams.
Left: my favorite picture of Dan | Right: a nicely tanned me
And… that’s all that’s really going on. My mom has a meeting with her lawyer today, to make sure that everything regarding my grandfather’s estate and life insurance policies are handled properly. My brothers are coming over on Friday afternoon to celebrate my oldest younger brother’s 14th birthday (which is today) and the 4th of July, and on the 4th we’ll be doing a barbecue. Danielle and Matt will be in the area for the weekend, so we’ll hang out, and they’ll be joining us for our barbecue. Yay! 
Right now I have a bunch of emails to catch up on, so I guess I better get back to that!
Yeah!! I can’t wait to see you guys! ;) You got a very nice tan, I am jealous!
I’m with you in that II love the beach too but absolutely HATE the sand. Even worse is when the sand is mostly rocks (which was the case the last time I was at a beach… blech.)
It’s so awesome that Ryan did so well!
My husband bought me some spray-on sunscreen and I haven’t had the chance to use it, but he used it when he went golfing and he said it worked really well – it’s Coppertone and I think it’s the Sports Spray or something like that. I always hate applying sunscreen (ah, the joys of being SUPA pale) but the spray-on feature is super awesome.
I am so glad that you had a good time. We are probably heading to the beach later this week. Hopefully since I’ve been outside a few times in the sun I won’t have any sunburn either but we’ll see. His tattoo is pretty awesome. I definitely think he should get one.
The Neutrogena sunscreen didn’t work for you? I used it the entire week I was at the beach; I was pretty much out there the entire time (I’m not one of those sit under an umbrella and don’t get sandy kind of girls, haha) and I didn’t get burned at all. They could be more sensitive, I dunno. However, as mentioned by Mika, the Coppertone sports spray works fantastic… actually, I would say it’s probably better than the Neutrogena.
Nice tan and wow, you seem to have lost a *lot* of weight. Congrats.
I personally hate the sun and I hate beaches so amen on the sand thing. I don’t even tan, I just burn, even if I coat myself in “SunBGone SPF-9000000″. Sunburn is… horrible.