Staying Hydrated.

As you well know, children, staying hydrated is an important part of having a happy and healthy vacation. Just to make sure we're all on the same page, let's review what exactly hydration means.

"Hydrate" comes from the name of the Greek monster "Hydra," who flailed wildly in the water and grew two new heads any time one of its heads was cut off. That is why today, when people drink a lot, they lose control of their limbs and see double.

We in the Lemieux / Clark / Garrity clan work hard at staying hydrated, no matter what the circumstances.

And we're not at all particular about where our hydration comes from, so long as it does not come from the tap.

Disclaimer: Please hydrate responsibly. Operating a motor vehicle while overly hydrated can lead to getting really mixed up about directions and also crashes. If you're expecting a child, go ahead an hydrate, as long as you're expecting that child for dinner or an afternoon playdate. If you're pregnant (and I hope you'd tell me if you were!), don't even think about hydrating (unless you're French, in which case you can probably drink a glass of wine every now and then without people totally freaking out at you).

Everyday Lifer Goes to the Beach!

Children, I skipped last week. Why? Because I was on a beach vacation the likes of which you can only imagine (mostly owing to the fact that you did not yet exist at the time the vacation took place). I know "live tweeting" and "live blogging" are de rigeur at this point in time, but I'll be gosh-darned if I ever adhere to rigid blogging guidelines while on vacation. So here's a full report, with a scandalous, very un-digital-age, one-week delay.

The first night of our beach vacation was pretty much what you'd expect.

Lucia and Marissa shared wine and posed in what they thought were candid, "Everyday Lifer"-friendly positions. Even though I am severely opposed to posing on this blog, I let this incident slide, in honor of the fact that it's a vacation edition.

Then Auntie Kristin documented the events of the day with magic marker in our vacation sketch book, per standard vacation custom. I guess you could call that book the original Everyday Life: Vacation Edition blog.

And finally, your grandmother did her youth-promoting, flab-reducing arm exercises, which consist of holding her arms out at shoulder height between glasses of wine.

Oh, and how could I forget: immediately upon arriving at the beach, we rushed to the store to buy three dozen bananas. Because, you know, we're all pretty much batshit crazy. Sorry about passing that on to you, by the way.

Being Fancy.

Children, you know by now that your father and I are many things, but one thing we are certainly not is fancy. However, from time to time, both of us like to "play against type," as it were, and act a bit fancy just to get it out of our system.

This week, your father went all out. First, he insisted that we visit a local winery, and when we got there, he donned one of the fanciest disguises of all: the finger mustache.

After a leisurely session of drinking wine in an extremely fancy multi-layer outdoor deck (in a shirt so fancy it has buttons on it), he frolicked among the grapevines to demonstrate just how at ease he is with fanciness.

I would be lying if I said I wish you could have been there, children, because if you had, I would have had to take care of you instead of drinking delicious wine. But I am glad you have this blog post to cherish for all of eternity.