Vacation, vacation everywhere!

My first day back from a week-long vacation, I had a meeting at the Daytona Beach Resort and Conference Center. You know how you feel the first day back at work after a vacation - like you wish you were still on vacation? Well I was feeling that way and that feeling got even stronger while I was sitting at the resort watching all the families wondering in and out of the pool deck, drinks in hand, kids in tow with the smell of suntan lotion.

While I love, love, love living in the Sunshine State, it can sometimes be difficult to be surrounded constantly by people on vacation. When I was a kid growing up in St. Augustine, this fact of life was actually a lot of fun.

Growing up in vacationland as a kid, I learned to have a good time with the tourists. My best friend and I would often take advantage of their cluelessness (why do we leave our brain at home on vacation?). From giving tourists the wrong directions, to telling them tales of manatees nesting on the shores of our beaches, we had a great time being real smart-aleks. But the best trick we ever played on these poor visitors was after a hard rain in the historic district. Downtown St. Augustine tends to flood along the bayfront area during rainstorms. This particular storm had left the parking lot of the fort under water by a few inches. After the rain stopped, my friend and I decided to "wade" across the fort parking lot. Only we got down on our knees and trudged through the water. Car after car would pull up to the entrance to the fort parking lot, see us up to our thighs in water and turn away less they get swamped. We took great delight with every car we scared away.

I'm sure the convention and visitor's bureau really appreciated that.

Ta-Da, a winner and a new give-away!

Congratulations to Kim P for winning the very first Florida Native Mom blog giveaway - a free weekend at Perry's Ocean Edge resort in Daytona Beach. I'm moving right along to my next give-away which is a free RV rental for the weekend. If you've ever wanted to give camping in an RV a try, now is your chance. The great folks at Ocean Grove RV in St. Augustine - where I bought our family RV - are providing this great prize to the readers of the Native Mom blog.

We've camped all over the Sunshine State. Beloved loves the rustic campgrounds and I'm ok with any campground that is clean, well maintained and has lots of things for the kids to do. Beautiful surroundings are a plus, but you'll find that at just about any campground in Florida. A few of my favorites include: Wekiva Springs, Anastasia State Park, Hillsborough River State Park, Ocean Grove RV resort in St. Augustine and Fort Wilderness at Walt Disney World.

We've camped year-round and have learned over the years how to pack and plan for all kinds of weather. I've also become a great campground cook.

So enter to win the RV get-a-way and think about giving camping in Florida a try!

Update: To enter the RV give-away, see the sidebar to the right with instructions under the Ocean Grove RV logo. Send an e-mail with your name and e-mail address to flnativemom@gmail.com to enter to win.

Come Sail Away!

Just returned from a week long spring break cruise. Unlike many of the college spring breakers, our cruise involved 9 adults and 8 kids, 5 families traveling together on a Carnival cruise. The kids enjoyed having free ice cream all day long and riding the glass elevators up and down 9 stories in the main atrium of the cruise ship. Luckily there was a piano bar in the atrium so while our kids entertained themselves playing "tag" in the glass elevators, the adults could sit, sip and enjoy the music.

We've done this spring break family cruise for 4 years now. And we finally decided this year that in the future, we don't necessarily need to travel on a cruise ship. We simply have to find a place that offers free ice cream all day long and has some glass elevators for the kids to play in. And if this resort had a few dancing waiters, bonus!

A microcosm of society

I was fortunate enough to spend an hour of my day in the customer waiting area of the my local Chevrolet dealership's service department. My was it entertaining!

First there was this guy who had very strong opinions and knew absolutely everything about the health care bill that just passed. Lucky me to be in the presence of such an educated guy. And the fact that he was so willing to share all his knowledge and opinions with us (the captive audience) was just so generous of him. Only problem was, about half the waiting room was full of WWII veterans who had trouble hearing anything at all - much less the "health care bill expert's" loud and seemingly never ending monologues. Which made for some interesting conversations for me, the casual observer. It went something like this . . .

HEALTH CARE BILL EXPERT (HCBE): This country is going to hell in a handbasket. If you think this won't affect you personally, you're wrong. We're all gonna pay!

WWII Vet #1: It won't affect me or my insurance.

HCBE: Of course it will! If you think it won't then you just don't understand the bill. I mean, I doubt if Obama ever even read the bill - it was like 8,000 pages - and I bet he never even read it!

(me thinking to myself . . .and you did?)

WWII Vet#1: I'm a retired veteran on TriCare. The military takes care of my health care. It won't affect me.

HCBE: Oh sure, not you, but what about all the active military? They're screwed!

WWII Vet#2: I earned my health care as part of my pension, 35 years working for the teamsters, and as a veteran.

HCBE: You're both veterans? Obama thinks we should have to apologize to the Japanese for dropping the bomb. This country is going down the tubes!

WWII Vet#2: YOU THINK WE SHOULD APOLOGIZE FOR DROPPING THE BOMB ON HIROSHIMA?!?!? WELL, I'LL TELL YOU SOMETHING . . .

WWII Vet#2 Wife: Honey, he said Obama apologized, not that he thought we should apologize.

About this point, I had the urge to stand up and announce to all these guys in the waiting room that I was a military veteran myself, and I also happened to be a lesbian with breast cancer and no insurance! So bring on the health care bill and get rid of Don't Ask Don't Tell!!!!

But I didn't.

One day you're hot, next day you're not

Yesterday, sunshine returned to the Sunshine State and the temperature here got to 80 degrees. Today, rainy and cool. Spring is being quite fickle this year.

But on to another topic since blogging about the weather is boring. (you know it's true)

MiniMe says today "This week is going to be the longest week of my life."

I understand completely, because the end of this week we leave for our spring break cruise. Kinda like waiting for Christmas for all of us. In preparation, my sassy little daughter and I had mani-pedis yesterday. (for all my male readers, that means we got our nails done and had pedicures) MiniMe wanted yellow nail polish. Thank god the salon was all out of yellow. Must be a popular color! So she had to settle for green.

Is Florida the cruise capital of the U.S.? I'm not sure but we have several ports within a short driving distance of anywhere in the state. In the news today, there was a report that the U.S. cruise industry is posting strong gains. Apparently in bad economic times, cruising is a popular choice for the small part of the American population who can still afford a vacation. So what is the cruise industry doing in response to their strong sales - you guessed it, they're raising prices. Good thing we booked our cruise so long ago we still got a cheap rate.

Which leads me to a question for all of you. Cruising. Have you ever done it? Love it or hate it?

I get by with a little help from my friends

I've had a rough couple of weeks. A don't sleep, don't eat, be cranky kinda week. But don't worry, this won't be a bitter blog. Instead, I'm gonna share a kindness shown me today by a co-worker, friend and a brand new addition to the blogosphere - ShakeNTakeMom.

This lady is the best. Not only is she the most creative individual, she runs her own business with integrity and a positive attitude. All while raising two very busy little boys (are there any other kind?). Today she stopped what she was doing to help me out with my work. And it made a big difference in my day.

This is a real change for me. I'm usually a "glass half empty" kinda chick. No, let's be honest, I'm usually a "how come everyone else got a full glass and I got a broken beer mug?" kinda chick. But ShakeNTakeMom's support, along with all the other kind and thoughtful things my family and friends have done for me the last few weeks, has given me a more positive outlook. And I'm spreading it around .. .

Have I told all you NativeMom readers how great you are? Well you rock! And you're a good lookin' bunch, too!

Spring Fever

Since the sun actually came out this weekend and the temperature got above 60 degrees, I have caught spring fever! Been cleaning out closets and looking wistfully at the summer calendar. We won't be taking a vacation this summer (thanks to the economy) but I do look forward to summertime.

If you have spring fever (or even if you don't) sign up for your chance to win this month's Native Mom give-away. It is a weekend at Perry's Ocean Edge resort in Daytona Beach. Ocean front room, indoor and outdoor pools, tiki-bar, suites with kitchen, kid's suite rooms with bunks and games, and they serve fresh, hot, homemade donuts to guests every morning. For free!

Simply send an e-mail to my address at flnativemom@gmail.com and you'll be entered to win. Entries will be taken through March 31 when a winner will be drawn at random!

Go ahead, catch spring fever and good luck!

Mommies Night Out

My fellow working mommies and I get together every Wednesday night after work for a little girl time. Our husbands don't mind that we're AWOL for a little while each Wednesday because they've come to realize the positive benefits of giving mommy an hour away from home each week with her girlfriends, i.e. her head does not explode and everyone at home lives to see another day.

We had a rather large ladies group this week. And I was amazed at the range of topics we managed to cover. I've broken them down below:

• Our upcoming cruise and what to wear on the drive to the cruiseship
• Art
• Business and jobs
• Boy Scout camping trips
• Dogs
• Facebook
• Bowling
• Botox (for and against)
• And the size of Head Gin Mom's teenage son's feet (size 13 yikes!)

Summer Fun minus a Diving Board

Since the sun actually peaked out and the temperature got above 60 degrees for a few minutes this weekend, I started thinking about getting my pool and pool deck cleaned up and ready for use. My kids enjoy swimming in the summer as much as I did when I was their age. They've got it even better now than we did because they have the benefit of waterproof sunscreen, more access to pools, swim classes at an earlier age, and pool toys that are much cooler than the inflatable rings and the random penny we had to play with growing up.

The kids today do miss out on one thing that was perhaps the best part of swimming in Florida every summer. The diving board. (just one more reason to luv the insurance industry!)

My sister and I used to wear ourselves out on the diving board. There were the swan dive contests that had to be judged by my Mammaw (over and over and over and over . . . ). Then there were the scary but thrilling efforts to learn to do a backflip off the board (Kids, you'll crack your head open! coming from my mom). And of course no pool day would be complete without our favorite game. The diver had to catch a ball thrown by a friend from the side of the pool before it hit the water. Even belly flops were fun.

Kids today just don't know what they're missing.

Future Bike Week Babe

My route to and from MiniMe's elementary school takes me right through the heart of Bike Week activities. There's just no way to avoid it. And so there's no way for MiniMe to avoid seeing some things that can be a little hard for this NativeMom to explain to a fifth grader. Although, she's seen it all for several years now and has gotten over the icky factor a little, and I've gotten over my uncomfortableness at explaining things like girls in g-strings on the back of motorcycles.

This week, MiniMe sees a couple of young ladies in bathing suits standing in front of one of the bars we pass in our travels. They are holding signs and inviting bikers in for a "bike wash."

"Mom, what are those girls doing?"

They are washing people's motorcycles. Kind of like a car wash to raise money.

"How do you get that job?"

(Hmmm, I never thought of that) Well, I guess you go to the bar and put in an application before Bike Week.

"Why would the girls want to wash people's motorcycles?"

Well, they make a lot of money since the bikers pay them and give them tips. Maybe you and your friend Thing 1 could work Bike Week in about 10 or 15 years to help you earn money for college (or the downpayment on your first house).

"We'd get a lot of money? How much?"

A few hundred dollars a day, maybe more.

"Really? But would we have to let bikers drink beer out of our belly buttons?"

Honey, you never have to let anyone drink anything out of your belly button, no matter how much money they offer you.

Blog Update: From the comments I realize a disclaimer is needed. MiniMe did not see the "drinking from the belly button" at one of Mommie's parties. Whew! She unfortunately saw this demonstration on Beach Street last bike week, which doesn't even have a bar!