as for today ... we're still on vacation

This is where we've been the past week...

At Wild Dunes on the Isle of Palms. Thanks in large part to Kathleen, who works as a travel agent when she's not swimming for drowning prevention, we were able to rent an amazing bungalow, 200 yards from the beach.

The scenery was gorgeous, the weather was beautiful, the ocean water was an incredible 80-something degrees. This was our first "true" vacation as a family ... if you define "vacation" as an event where you lay around and do absolutely nothing except body surf, build sand castles, wade to sand bars to hunt for seashells, bury your toes in the sand, indulge on delicious foods, and devour good books while your children run from waves.

Oh, and then ... at the end of the day ... sit on a deck overlooking the intracoastal waterway and sip ice cold beer, while the sun sets on your tanned shoulders and you blissfully watch dolphins jump and frolic in the tide.

In a word this week has been: epic.

After spending time at this beach, swimming in these ocean waters, I have come up with reason number 2,567 I would like to move back to South Carolina. Indeed, our trip at the beach was so stellar, I cried more than the children did when it was time to leave.

Over the past 14 days I have taken no less than 600 pictures. Tonight, as I was uploading them on to Flickr, I noticed that midway through my photojournaling extravaganza, Carolyn hijacked my camera and snapped off at least another 200 pictures of various objects including her nostrils, my running shoes, Charlie's toothbrush, and the pots and pans at our rental house. I'll probably opt to leave those shots out, but I do plan to post several pictures of our time away, once we return home.

We are due to fly back to California tomorrow evening. But before we do, we have a full day planned. In the morning, I will run (or most likely walk) the Swamp Rabbit Trail with my cousin, Margaret. And while I do that, Charlie will be visiting what he considers to be the most awesome YMCA in the country to swim a few laps while my mother takes the triplets to visit a local children's museum. Then, we'll reconvene, load up our 12 passenger van, and drive two something hours to Atlanta to catch our direct flight back to San Diego. We'll be arriving home at around 11 PM tomorrow night. Just in time for a business meeting I have scheduled first thing, Wednesday morning.

I'm desperately trying not to think about that.

Right now, I'm thinking that there are approximately 22 hours remaining before we board our plane. Which means there are approximately 22 hours of vacation time remaining.

We're not done quite yet.

And that's a very good feeling.