Our Stay-cation

I have been informed by a reliable, Wall Street Journal-reading source that vacations which are spent quietly at home are now termed by the fashionable world "stay-cations." A term, which to me, doesn't sound terribly fashionable. Nonetheless, I will attest to the fact that stay-cations can be very relaxing.

While we had tossed around ideas of gallivanting off to New York or Philadelphia during our two day All-Star break, the seductiveness of rest and no driving won out, resulting in our very own, apparently fashionable, stay-cation, which began immediately after Monday's 4-3 victory over Bowie, in which Josh pitched 1.1 innings and logged the win. The 12 o'clock game was over by 3:30 and we decided that Carrabba's sounded like a nice treat. McKenzie fell asleep on the way, and miraculously slept all through dinner in her stroller. Hurrah!! A date and we hadn't even planned one. We were able to leisurely and quietly enjoy our dinner, accompanied by glasses of refreshing Italian Sangrias. It was a wonderful start to our stay-cation.

That night we watched the Home Run Derby and marveled at Josh Hamilton's amazing performance. He hit 28 home runs in the first round. The most ever in Home Run Derby history. Although at times I feel overdosed on baseball, I was so glad we watched that night because Josh Hamilton has an amazing story of how the Lord redeemed him from drug and alcohol abuse, for which he gave the Lord complete glory on national television. You can read more about that story here.

We spent the next two days hanging out by the pool, taking naps, watching movies, and all that other great stuff you do on stay-cations. One of the movies we rented was called "The Chaos Theory." It was a comical movie, but its PG-13 content did necessitate fast-forwarding a scene or two. Aside from the laughs, we were intrigued by what seemed like Solomon's book of Ecclesiastes distilled into comedy. While the protagonist doesn't turn to God like Solomon, he does learn that everything in life other than loving others is "chasing after the wind." Deep, even for Hollywood.

As they always do, our stay-cation quickly came to an end. Thursday we were on the road again. Back to Altoona for four days. After the last of the four game series here tomorrow, Josh and the team will continue on to Bowie, MD for four days and McKenzie and I will drive north to New York, where my brother Clint and his wife Erin are visiting her family. I can't wait!

When we get home, I'll post some of the fun pictures I took of Josh smoking cigars by the pool, McKenzie wearing her floaties on her feet and sleeping with chocolate smeared all over her face, as well as all the other wonderful moments of our stay-cation. Hopefully there will also be some from our excursion to New York.

As T-i-gg-er loves to say, TTFN.