Summer Vacation 2013

Hilton Head Island, SC

This summer, we took an 11 day vacation to Tennessee and Hilton Head Island. We went to visit some good friends in Tennessee, and Sabrina's family was getting together for a week in Hilton Head Island. We flew into Atlanta, Georgia; drove to Chattanooga, Tennessee; and then drove to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. We had a wonderful time even though all of us (except for Adam) got sick at one time or another. After our crazy spring (see Martha Stewart Doesn't Live Here ), this vacation was MUCH needed. Below are some pictures from the trip:

At the airport

Waiting on the luggage in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sabrina's childhood neighbor and best friend since the 4th grade. She came to spend some time with us while we were in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is never long enough.

Alemitu became best friends with Tara too.

Our kids and Tara's kids. They played so well together. Tara's kids are amazing.

Enjoying the duck tour in Chattanooga, Tennessee

The Roy Family. We love this family. We went to Ethiopia twice together and became fast friends. We make it a point to get together, even though we live halfway across the country from each other. We hope to go on a cruise in 2014 with the Roy Family.

Alemitu's 'not impressed' face while she waits for Ty to get to the aquarium.

Adam and Brian took the bigs white water rafting, and Hollie and I took the littles to the aquarium.

They came back with lots of funny stories. The water was about 50 degrees.

 

Alemitu and Tamarat. I love that this little boy calls her by her full name, "Alemitu". That is how he knows her. They were in the same orphanage together.

Birthday kiss from Ty.

Alemitu's classic "snot face". When she isn't happy, she'll show you.

Alemitu eating her birthday cupcake with the Roy family.

Silly Faces!!

 

Typical Allen family photo. Mom and Dad - smiling and acting appropriately. Christina - too cool. Sabrina - angry, middle child. Jenna - show off.

Sand Castle and Alligator creating

We always bike ride at Hilton Head. The boys are getting too big for these bikes, and they were leaning so far over.

Dolphin Cruise. It was so very hot that day. It was the only bad weather day while we were there.

Sabrina's Family. (Technically extended family.) What a wonderful week we had.

Adam and Calvin built this sand castle. Then cousin Levi came by to inspect (crawl around on) it.

 

Need I say more? Lots of attitude. Lots of love.

Birthday party for all the grandkids in Hilton Head.

Sick Calvin. Except for Adam, we all had fevers and a little sickness while we were there. We even had to stop at an urgent care for Wes. He had a throat infection, high fever, and needed antibiotics.

Best buds

Another snot face.

Way out in the ocean

Best friends

These little girls weren't scared of going deep in the ocean.

Martha Stewart Doesn't Live Here

I pride myself in being real. My life is an open book. I'll tell you my weight; I'll tell you my financial ups and downs; and I'll tell you when I've screwed up. I've been writing one of my best friends from junior high and high school over the past year. We got back in touch after a slow falling out 10+ years ago. A few months ago, I referred her to this blog. I gave her the disclaimer that my life is not all butterflies and roses as my blog displays. Don't get me wrong, I have a really, really good life. But over the past 2 years, we've had some difficult struggles with an ex-boss terrorizing me and my business partner (Ex-boss ended up being convicted of a felony for it, and business was shut down.) We have some real difficult struggles with some extended family. However these struggles I've had the past 2 years just aren't my stories to tell, so I've continued telling stories that I can share -- and that is the butterflies and roses of my life.

But after a friend, who had moved a month prior to us, said to me, "I'm sure your house is all unpacked and in perfect order", I thought it was time to be real again. I'm here to tell you, it ain't always butterflies and roses. We have chaos. I've got three kids, and I work for my husband, work at my salon, and oh yeah, I'm also a stay at home mom. My 3 year old daughter is going on 16, and my 8 year old boys enjoy doing things that involve really, really loud volume, hitting, playing, and I swear if I have to put the couch cushions back in place one.more.time, I'm going to lose it. I have good kids, I really do. For the most part, they listen really, really well. But there are some days that I have to put myself in time out. Just the other day, my 3 year old was whining that she wanted her drink as the Sonic guy was trying to hand me my drink order and slowly, oh so slowly, gather the change he needed to give me. I would turn around and sternly say, "Allie, Just a minute." and then I'd turn back and smile at the Sonic guy while I waited for my change -- over and over again. She kept whining for her drink. Then I did something so out of character, I couldn't help but laugh. I continued smiling at the Sonic guy while I started blindly swatting behind me in hopes I'd make contact with some piece of 3 year old body. Then I drove off . . . only to hit a curb on the way out. At that point, I couldn't help but bust out laughing. My daughter joined in with the laughter . . . and then started asking for her drink again. Chaos.

So you can imagine the utter chaos that we lived in while we were renovating this house, trying to finish school, trying to move into this house and re-paint and prepare the old house to turn the keys back in, get ready for my daughter's birthday, AND pack for an 11 day vacation. We needed a vacation, oh so badly. But our life was so chaotic leading up to it. Normally I start packing several weeks in advance. Not this time. My house was a disaster. We were having a little birthday party for Alemitu. I still needed to pack. I had 4 hours of braiding to do on my daughter's hair. I had gotten about 2-3 hours of sleep the previous night, and we were leaving for vacation at 7 a.m. the next morning. In addition, I hadn't even looked at things to do in Chattanooga. I had NOTHING planned.

My house at about 2 am before leaving for vacation.

I ran around the house for hours trying to get things done. Finally, at 3 am I told Adam that I was going to take a "nap" before getting up at 5 a.m. This would make the total hours of sleep 4-5 in 48 hours. When I woke up, I realized that I hadn't even checked in for our flight . . . and we were flying the dreaded Southwest. But don't you worry Southwest, you didn't get me this time -- families with children under 5 can board after the A section. Yahoo! Score a win for the Fischer Family.

This is how Adam found Alemitu on vacation morning. I wasn't the only one overtired, I guess.

When I got myself dressed, I realized that I had packed all of my clothes and forgot to leave out an outfit for flying. Oh who cares, put on some exercise pants and a new pair of shoes. Sure, it should be fine not wearing socks with the new shoes. Dead. Wrong. These are the lovely socks I purchased when my feet started blistering at the airport.

 

We finally got on our plane. Alemitu was sitting between Adam and I, and she started talking and asking for her headphones and movie immediately. I took my pill for claustrophobia, then I turned on my selective hearing, closed my eyes a little tighter, laid my head against the window, and I don't even remember the plane taking off. Here comes vacation.

Even with the chaos, I am one blessed momma.

Spring

We had a very busy spring. The biggest thing was that we purchased a new house. The month of February consisted of me and Alemitu driving about 3 hours a day looking at houses . . . followed up by Adam in the evening on the way home from work. I think we drove through (and rated) every, single neighborhood in the upper right quadrant of Phoenix. We were looking for an older home in the city. After some hit and misses, we settled on a house in an older, well known Phoenix neighborhood. While the neighborhood is located in the city, it is super quiet and serene. All the neighbors are friendly with each other, and it has its own newspaper, blog, etc. The area is surrounded by mountains, so the temperature is a few degrees cooler with usually a slight breeze. We fell in love with this area, and it is an area not too far from where Adam grew up.

After finding the perfect house, March consisted of shopping, shopping, and more shopping . . . making decisions regarding contractors, remodeling, paint colors, and Sabrina's job. In the months of April and May, we spent just about every free moment at the new house. It is 35 minutes away from our prior house. Alemitu and I would spend our days there, then we would drive back home to pick up the boys from school, and then drive back to the new house and stay until bedtime. By the end of May, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. And yes, I am that mom that let my boys skip school the day before school was out . . . because I. Just. Couldn't. Get. Up. (Adam questioned this decision, but later I got a reverse 911 call from the school stating it was on lock down until 4:30 that afternoon. I told Adam it must have been mother's intuition, and not the fact that I. Just. Couldn't. Get. Up.) On moving day, I couldn't even squeeze my hands together in a fist because it hurt so bad. Everything hurt. Even my knee caps. And what made it even more depressing was that after we finally moved in . . . we had to re-paint and get out of our rental house. I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever worked so hard in my life.

The boys entertained themselves while we shopped by taking lots of crazy pictures.

We are now all moved in, and we are continuing to do some small renovations. In a few weeks, I will post some before/after pictures. Our house was built in 1969 so there is plenty of stuff left to remodel over the next few years. But for now, we love our comfortable home -- even if parts of it doesn't have things like baseboards or door handles right now.

Our backyard

View from our front yard, looking down the street.

Below are some pictures of some other things we did this spring:

Adam took the kids to a outdoor expo one Saturday. They came home with a BB gun. Oy Vey.

 

 

My family came to visit.

We barely survived the end of school. At the end of April, Calvin wrote that his favorite activity in April was "read a book outside". When asked why he liked it, he wrote "I do not no why." That is Calvin's personality in a nutshell -- 100% honest. Because I was barely surviving myself, I thought this was a perfect answer and let him turn it in. The good thing is that his teacher enjoyed it also and later put a smiley face by it. (The X you see is a bleed through from the backside.)

I work so much for Adam's company, and also stay home with the kids. Adam told me I should take a break from the salon for a few years, but we settled on working Saturdays. My clients have become my friends, and I share a suite with on of my best friends. I couldn't walk away from all of that. So this is perfect!!

The boys ran more than 2 miles in an Apex Fun Run at their school. They collected pledges, and were super excited about this race. On race day, both Adam and I were there cheering them on. They both ran the majority of it and completed more laps than Apex expected. We were so proud of them.

Alemitu was so exhausted going from house to house. This is her, having completely crashed, at our rental house. The painter (who we ended up hiring) walked all around her and she never stirred.

We went to visit some friends one Saturday evening. Alemitu and Sophie are both super divas, and it was fun to watch them play with (and tattle on) each other. These friends have twin boys born a few days after Wes and Calvin. They also have a daughter from Ethiopia that is 1 month older than Alemitu. 

After the boys finished school, we did spend a few hours at the pool each day during the last week of May.