For more pics, visit Wordless Wednesday or 5 Minutes for Mom!

This is also my entry to Write From Karen’s Summer 2009 Photo Contest and An Island Life “I Love Summer” Photo Contest!

We’ve been home since Friday and we’re still finding sand…

We had an amazing time in Virginia Beach. We pretty much did two things: The Beach and The Pool.  I think it was Wednesday when Dave and I finally said we needed to go do something other than The Beach and The Pool.

So we went bowling.

We did make it to the aquarium on Thursday and stopped at a museum on the way home Friday, but the highlight of the trip was definitely The Beach and The Pool.

And if it weren’t for the all the sand, I could SOOOOO get used to waking up every morning and walking out on my balcony to see the ocean. Yeah, that was awesome.

So were the walks we took on the boardwalk. Dave and I both love to people watch and there were definitely a big mix of people. But it definitely wasn’t overcrowded which was so nice.

The weather was beautiful, it never got above 84.

And have I mentioned the dolphins?  The dolphins that I could have touched if only I would have left my camera and shoes on the beach?  They were playing in the waves rolling onto the beach.  Just breathtaking. (You’re going to want to click on the picture for the full effect)

And I’m pretty sure if set up a small tent at the water’s edge, Emma could have played where the water met the beach all day.

And Jake would’ve been happy as a clam to stand in one place and jump in the waves all day long.

I definitely would call this vacation a success…

Last up for this week of guest posters is my brother, Erik. You’ll remember I featured him in a couple of Thursday Thirteens (one about him and his response about me). He doesn’t have a blog, but he’s mentioned possibly starting one for his photography. He is the Chief Preparator & Programs Assistant at an art gallery in California.

He’s pretty cool…but I think this post just proves WHY mom liked me best. And I’m sure the fact that this all happened around my first year of life is purely coincidental.  I hope.

His take on: Since hindsight is 20/20, what is the best “mistake” you’ve ever made?

When I was a kid I had a morning paper route. I’d pry myself out of bed at 4am or so and pick up the bundle of newsprint that was dropped in front of my house by “Gilbert”, my route manager. I never discovered whether that was his first or last name. He just called himself “Gilbert”, no “Mr.”, no nuthin’. Concurrent with my new career in journalism- the paper was the Columbus Citizen-Journal- I was dipping my toe into film making as well with my brother and my best friend and his brother. We were particularly enthralled with space adventure and model building. We’d make big space cruisers out of that modular styrofoam packing material from appliances we’d scavenge out of the dumpsters on my paper route. We’d add elements we’d make out of balsa wood and plastic parts from model kits and fiber optics, etc.

Now, in order to make a proper space epic there had to be explosions. Big explosions. And this is where I set upon the best series of mistakes. Over a period of about a year, I’d say between sixth and seventh grade I, with my brothers-in-arms set upon a path of creative destruction.

Regular firecrackers and cherry bombs and bottle rockets just didn’t cut it in the special effects department. So somehow we got a recipe for a homemade firework from another set of brothers. These things were very simple to make and basically harmless but they produced a hail of burning match heads and a huge BANG. Plus they looked great on film.

I suppose it was a mistake to be blowing things up in the dead of night in our own neighborhood. But it’s clear to me now that expanding those activities into blowing up peoples’ planters and trash cans and setting them off on the doorsteps of innocent folks’ homes while they were fast asleep was downright mean. And criminal. We even got chased by a helicopter once. Which is why the FBI got involved.

To make a long story short, our principal provided the Feds with our names, and everybody got hauled off. Everybody but me. Somehow my name was left off the list and I stayed home while my brother and the four others and their parents made a trip downtown. I imagined them being thrown in a dark room with a big two-way mirror and a light shining in their faces.

We all got our story straight before the trip. Everybody lied. It wasn’t us. No consequences. I don’t even recall if anybody got punished.

The mistakes are clear, but man-o-man those were some of the best times. In hindsight I feel horrible about the part of it that went beyond making movies, but the sense of freedom and feeling like we were doing something outrageous and creative and thrilling was beyond description.

Today’s guest is Heather.  You can find her blogging at Mama Sass (and she’s totally rolling her eyes right now).

Here’s here take on the question…

Since hindsight is 20/20, what is the best “mistake” you’ve ever made?

Thanks for joining in, Heather!!

Yes, even at 18 I was highly type A.

At the end of my senior year, I had three college choices. A private school in Oregon (Monica Lewinsky went there!), a state school about four hours away from home, and another state school right in my hometown.

A rational person would have chosen to leave home. Go somewhere new. Have some meaningful and interesting life experiences.

But come on, did you really think an 18 year old would make the WISE decision?  Um, yeah. That’s a big negative.

So, I stayed in my hometown for college, to be with my boyfriend. And we all know where this is going.

About halfway through our sophomore year, he started acting funny. And hanging out with a couple of other girls. A lot. I was suspicious, but if I brought it up I was ‘crazy’.

Lo and behold, on New Year’s Eve (I KNOW!) 1997, he broke up with me.  On the phone. While he was at a party. With the other girl.

I could have taken this break as an opportunity have a fresh start in 1998.  Instead, I took another route. I went insane. As in, I’m going to sit in my tub for three hours in freezing water listening to Sarah Maclachlan crazy.  Looking back, I’m pretty positive that I most definitely could have used some meds. It was bad. Embarrassingly so.

Once I pulled myself out of the mud, which took some time, I managed to have some semblance of a normal life. I went to work, I went to school, I pulled decent grades. But I was stuck in this small community where I constantly had to deal with the fallout of my former relationship. It sucked. Hard.

All the while, I’m attending this college where I don’t really fit in, and pursuing a major that in retrospect, was a huge error in judgment. English? Really? English degrees are good for two things. Teaching and … um… okay, one thing. And I’m not a teacher.

But, here’s the good part. My silver lining.

On my first day in the dorms, my roommate’s twin brother brought his roommate over to say hi.  That roommate and I became close friends.  We’d lose touch, but whenever we’d see each other, it would be as if no time had passed at all.

Did I mention he was cute? Cause he was.  But I never thought I was his type. We were just friends. Plus, he always had a girlfriend, or I a boyfriend.

After spending a year abroad in 1999-2000, I came home to finish my degree, graduating in spring of 2001.

The day after graduation, I packed all my belongings into my crappy old white Jetta and moved to the city.  Okay, a suburb.  Whatever.  I had my B.A. and nothing was stopping me, no sir! I was going to get my dream job straight away…if that job meant waiting tables at Red Robin (a.k.a. The Dirty Bird).  Yeah, things just don’t ever work out the way you plan…

Right after September 11, 2001, I got a call from my old friend from college.  He had run into one of my old roommates at a club and asked for my number. He lived just about 5 miles from me and wanted to get together for a beer.

I agreed. I had just been dumped, again (do you see a pattern here?) and it sounded really good to go catch up and have a shoulder to cry on.

After hanging out a few times, we went out and drank a little too much. Okay, a lot too much.  And it was that night that he confessed that he’d had a crush on me since we met and itwouldmakemereallyhappyifwecouldbetogether.  Yes, that’s how he said it. Really fast.

I told him I needed time to think. I was in shock for a couple of days. I mean, do I go out with him, and ruin our friendship, or do I NOT go out with him and ALSO ruin our friendship.

So we went on a date.

And now, almost eight years later, we are married and have a beautiful child.

So, the moral of this story? Even if you make some hideously stupid decisions, there may be a happy ending in it after all.

If I had run off to hang out with Monica Lewinsky in Oregon, I would have never met my husband.  My teenage romance mistake turned into something wonderful.

And if you would have told me that while I was in the tub listening to Sarah, I would have thrown my scrunchie at you.

Today’s guest is April.  Her personal blog is Did That Just Happen? and she also is one of the contributors over at The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans.

Here’s here take on the question…

Since hindsight is 20/20, what is the best “mistake” you’ve ever made?

Thank you, April!!

Outgoing April is a new part of me. I used to be shy all the time. Painfully shy. I would want to speak up and have more fun, but there was a part of me that just couldn’t. I would sit right over there *points at wall* and make sure that wall wouldn’t fall all night long. (Because you know, walls fall all the time for no good reason.)

I know exactly when this changed for me. I was shy and reserved through high school and college, but instead of getting better, after college it got worse. Because of one person.

We’ll call her Keri. We met at work, and at first, I thought we had a lot in common. It became clear to me from very early on that Keri was in an abusive marriage, and it pained me to see my friend hurting. So, one day she came to me and said that she wanted out of the marriage, but that she couldn’t do it alone.

I moved out of my parents’ house and into an apartment with her and her son. And a few months later, my life became hell. I think that it made Keri feel better to make me feel like crap most days. But at the time, I didn’t realize that’s what she was doing, I thought she was “helping me”.

I felt so poorly about myself that I was convinced she was right. Being geeky wasn’t cool, being different wasn’t cool, and if I were ever going to find a man, I needed to learn to wear nail polish.

One day after taking years of this (yeah, I was a little slow), I decided I had enough and broke off the friendship. That pretty much left me friendless. Because even those that I did hang out with, I wasn’t close friends with. I could never have talked to them about what I was going through.

In those friendless months, I found me. I discovered that I liked being different and geeky, and if a dude didn’t like me because I didn’t have my fingernails painted, then he was a horse’s arse anyway. In those friendless months, I found new friends. I could be completely myself around them, and I loved it. And then I found one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and she helped me to see that I am beautiful (even though I will blush if I’m told this), and that I love myself very much.

So, instead of saying that becoming friends with Keri was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, I really should walk up to her and thank her. Because without her I may never have hit rock bottom, I may never have seen how much I truly hated the person that I was, and YOU would have never known the real me.

While I’m on vacation, I’ve asked several people to do some guests posts.  They were all asked the same question:

Since hindsight is 20/20, what is the best “mistake” you’ve ever made?

First up, we have Stephanie.  Stephanie posts at Jason. For the love of God. She also recently published her first book,  Meeting Mr. Wrong: The Romantic Misadventures of a Southern Belle, and is in the process of writing her second.

Thank you, Stephanie, for playing along!!

My Favorite Mistake

In 1996, at the age of 20, I married my first husband. He was a mean, angry, sullen, and overall horrible individual and by the time I was twenty-two? He was totally out of my life.

We had a house, which I gave all my savings to purchase. He got that in the divorce. We had a lot of debt when we divorced. I got that. All of it. Oh, the judge told him he’d half to be responsible for half, but the moment we walked out of the courthouse? He laughed in my face and told me he didn’t care if his credit was ruined. He wasn’t paying a dime. And he didn’t.

He met someone else. A mullet-headed woman who had two kids and a husband of her own. The day after I moved out, she moved in. Into the home I paid for. She ate off the dishes I got for my wedding. She sat on my couch and slept in my bed. She happily left her husband and children behind and took over my life.

It took years of therapy to get over what happened to me. I still get angry sometimes. I still get sad sometimes. It changed my life in ways I cannot explain…don’t even want to explain.

It was the most horrible mistake I’ve ever made in my life.

It was the best mistake I’ve ever made in my life.

When my husband left me I was pregnant with twins. I had all the debt from their birth. He never paid a dime. I got a new house. New dishes. A new couch and a new bed.

I got a new life.

The results of my best mistake are now eleven years old. They are hysterically funny, kind, bright, and overall awesome in every way.

I don’t think about their father and neither do they. He was a blip on the radar of our lives. A donor.

A mistake.

I would do it all again. In a minute. In a heartbeat.

Tomorrow, we are leaving for Virginia Beach.  While we are taking a computer (gotta love free wireless), I’m not going to make a real big effort to post next week.

Which is why I lined up guest posters!  Yay!!

All next week, you’ll see posts from some of my favorite bloggers (and my non-blogging brother).  I asked them all the same question and I’m pretty excited about the answers they came back with.  I love getting different points of view from people, don’t you?

Have a great weekend everyone!  I’ll see ya’ll when I get back…after I get all the sand out of our unmentionables…

Photo Courtesy of Destination 360

I have become very goal oriented.  I mean, I’ve been making a lot of goals.

Achieving them?  That’s a whole nother post.

Anyway…here’s what I have coming up:

1. Along with Denise and others, I’m participating in the Pushing the Limits 2009 challenge.  That’s 100 pushups by July 31st.  We’re using the 100 Pushups program.  I just did Week 2, Day 2, Level 2 today.  Ow. Once I reach that goal, that’s one more thing off my Bucket List.
2. I’m signing up for another 5k.  I think I’ve lost my mind.  Once registration becomes available, I’ll have my choice of runs in mid to late September.  Dave’s running a half-marathon (over achiever) in September, too, so we’ll have to figure that one out. I’ll start on the C25k week 3 when I get back from vacation.
3. I’m going to do Wii Active 3 days a week.  Because it’s fun.  And Jake loves to watch me do it, which takes away the “I can’t do it because of the kids” excuse.
4. Did I mention I’m going on vacation?  I’ve committed myself to 20-30 minutes of cardio every day of vacation.  Dave and I just need to work out (no pun intended) when we will each get time to work out.  I see long, early(ish) morning walks on the beach in my future…

Oh, I’ve got plans all right.  BIG PLANS!  Did you do something active today?

Road Trip. That’s what I chose for the challenge this week. I think there are so many interesting things to see when you are stuck in the car for 7 hours.

All of these pictures were taken from I-70 East between Ohio and Maryland. The majority of them were taken when Dave was driving around 70 mph. They’ve only been edited for color.

The little white church down in the valley is by far my favorite part of the drive. It pops out of nowhere…you don’t even know how far above you are until the trees break and you are looking out over this beautiful valley. I love it.

You Capture is hosted by Beth at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

Despite consuming 3/4 of a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos earlier this week (that was a fun dinner!) I still managed to lose a pound this week.

Unfortunately, that brings me back to my starting weight of 157.

5 weeks and nothing to show for it.  Go me!

Aside from the unfortunate Doritos incident, I really have been making good choices lately.

What I haven’t been doing lately is exercising.  I finished the 5k on June 13th, and I haven’t really done a lot since then.  I did purchase the EA Active Sports for the Wii, but I’ve only used it 3 times.  3 workouts in 2.5 weeks.  That’s just sad.

So, taking Heather’s lead, I am going to sign up for another 5k in September.  Which means that the training will start again.  3 days of running, 3 days of Wii (which is just too much fun to even count as a workout) and a day of rest.  That’s my plan.

And because I’m an all or nothing kind of girl (usually it’s nothing), I am going to jump on Denise’s challenge for 100 pushups by the end of July.  I am going to start on Week 3 of the 100 Pushups plan.  That’s another 3 day a week plan so I’ll just throw those in somewhere.

Oh, and I leave for vacation on Sunday.  Wish me luck with that!!

This weeks goals:

1. Lose 1 lb by next Wednesday
2. 5 fruits and vegetables a day (even on vacation)
3. 20-30 minutes of exercise, 6 days a week (even on vacation)