La Beach

So we're back from Virginia Beach, or La Beach as the locals call it. My brother-in-law's Chief ceremony went really well and my dad and my sister each pinned one of his anchors on him. My dad was, of course, in all of his glory at the ceremony. He wore his uniform and was recognized by the emcee who said:

"I would like to thank Master Chief... er, I mean Command Master Chief CED and his wife for taking time, blah, blah, blah."

I could feel my dad grinning in the seat behind me. He is such a lover of the attention. Like someone else I know...... hee hee.

We stayed at the SunSpree resort right on the ocean and it was fanfuckingtastic. Even though it rained a good portion of the time, who wouldn't love this:

That's right. A lazy river. That you float in. All around. With the kids. Who stay occupied. Good fun.

Of course, no trip would be complete without one of my children doing something completely inappropriate. This time it was the little angel, who is three. He learned to sing the "where is thumbkin" song and wanted to sing it for the rest of the family. No problem, right? Wrong. When he got to the "where is middle finger part", he completely forgot the correct way of holding his finger up and instead flipped everyone the bird. My sister and brother laughed so hard they started crying. After a minute, my B-I-L had my son show grandpa that part of the song. Here is what my dad saw:

I though my dad was going to fall over. How he kept a straight face is beyond me. We are all laughing like loons in the background while my dad, as serious as can be, says "that's great sweetheart. I love you too."

Of course, the angel also told his sister that she was being a bitch one of the days. In front of everyone. Shit. Where do these kids learn this language? Just kidding. Actually I try not to swear in front of the kids. Apparently, I need to try a little harder. Although I don't call my daughter a bitch. That one he learned somewhere else.

The very best part of the trip was the first day. We left Wednesday at a little after 5:00 and should have gotten in around 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning. It was closer to 4:00 AM when we arrived because my sister lives in the seventh level of hell. Seriously. Driving in the Va Beach/Norfolk area is bad enough, but the area she lives in? Foggetaboutit. So we crash at her place until we can check in and we are asleep for about 45 minutes when this music wends it's way into my subconscious. I try to ignore it, but it gets louder and louder. I recognize the song but can't place it. Then my eyes pop open. And I hear singing for real. Really, really loud singing. Right outside the bedroom door. This is what I hear:

Stand Navy out to sea
Fight our battle cry
We’ll never change our course
So vicious foe steer shy-y-y-y
Roll out the T.N.T.
Anchors Aweigh
Sail on to victory and
Sink their bones to Davy Jones hooray!

Yo ho there shipmate
Take the fighting to the far off sea
Hear the wailing of the wild banshees
All hands, fire brands Let’s blast them as we go, so

Anchors Aweigh my boys
Anchors Aweigh
Farewell to college joys
We sail at break of day day day day
Through our last night on shore
Drink to the foam
Until we meet once more
Here’s wishing you a happy voyage home!

Heave a ho there sailor
Everybody drink up while you may
Heave a ho there sailor
For your gonna sail a break of day
Drink away, Drink away,
For you sail at break of day, hey!

Anchors Aweigh my boys
Anchors Aweigh
Farewell to college joys
We sail at break of day day day day
Through our last night on shore
Drink to the foam
Until we meet once more
Here’s wishing you a happy voyage home!

My B-I-L and one of the other Chief initiates were outside of my dad's bedroom door, serenading him with "Anchors Aweigh". My B-I-L lost it about halfway through and laughed his way through the rest of the song. It was super funny. Even after driving through the night and only getting a minute's rest.

I won't bore you with the details of the trip, but it's good to be back. On a serious note, I have been having some trouble with my blog lately. I may have to turn on word verification. I don't like to censor my readers, but there have been some instances where I have found out that the blogger who left the nasty comment was not, in fact, the person commenting and there was a hacking issue. I'm still thinking about it, but if you see the word verification pop up, I will apologize ahead of time.