Labor Day Weekend

You may recall that I was planning on visiting Deanna and the Dollars over Labor Day weekend.  Well, I did, and it was great.  I drove down to Myrtle Beach on Saturday morning and spent the day at the beach with Deanna and a gaggle (yes I used the word gaggle) of family and friends.  Deanna's aunt Susan, uncle Steve, cousins Kayleigh, Jenna, and Cameron, Mrs. Leonard, Jacqueline Leonard, Jacqueline's boyfriend Justin, and Julia Leonard were all there to spend time with the little babe.  The weather was perfect, and I even went into the ocean.  Not by choice, it was by default.  I was taken hostage against my will and catapulted into the frigid waters.  Okay, it wasn't so bad, I'm just incredibly dramatic and I love to exaggerate. 

The next morning, I found out that Deanna wakes up at 6:30 just about every day, and she likes to wake her guests up shortly after by jumping on their backs, going through their makeup bags, and trying on select pieces of their jewelery. And that was the end of my favorite pink lip gloss. 

There was a point during the trip when I realized how severe my OCD has become.  We went to a restaurant called "Duffy's" and you're supposed to throw your peanut shells on the floor.  Try as I might, I could not bring myself to get the floor dirty by contributing to the pile of shells.  The ever-observant Jacqueline Leonard called me out as a pile of shells collected on the table in front of me.  I took a deep breath and threw one shell on the floor.  Eww. I hated it.  It felt so wrong! I tried again.  A little better that time.  Finally I dumped the entire pile of peanut shells onto the floor.  I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as I realized that it would be okay to let loose from my perfectionist tendencies for one night.  Then the milk glasses came out (see pictures below) and all hell broke loose. 

Deanna is incredibly rambunctious.  I mean seriously, she goes non-stop from sunrise to sunset.  It's no wonder her metabolism is through the roof.  "Amy Hutton, you want to play with me?" she asked me.  "Of course!"  We played...and played....and played.  Of course, her cousin Cameron, who's 9, took precedence over everyone else (Deanna absolutely loves playing with Cameron).  We played hide and seek, dolls, and then we watched Deanna do gymnastics around the house.  At one point Justin and I even tried to participate.  Deanna's a limber one, that's for sure.  I think I pulled my groin trying to compete with Deanna's splits in the living room.  Check out the pictures while I apply more ice.