There are things we hoped to do during our time in the dirty south…take the kids to the ocean for the very first time, eat our weight in krispy kreme donuts, take our kids to DisneyWorld, visit Stone Mountain, take photos at Oakland Cemetery, eat big southern breakfasts that include things like biscuits and gravy and grits, visit old antebellum houses and maybe catch a civil war reenactment, and, of course, go to spring training.

So, this weekend was a Josh-and-Daddy road trip down to Tampa to see games and eat food and get autographs and, well, come home with sunburns. I won’t tell you that while I sit here IN ATLANTA and watch the snow come come down, I am secretly hoping that those sunburns are painful.

While the boys were living in up in Florida, the girls and I were living it up right here. We had a taco picnic dinner outside in our pajamas. We played 87 games of Sorry Sliders and I didn’t win a single game…and I am still a little bitter about it. I totally kick ass at curling, you’d think I’d be able to easily shoot a little piece of plastic down a piece of cardboard. AND YET. We had a tea party in our tutus. We snuggled under the covers and watched The Karate Kid and ate popcorn.

We went to see Fiddler on the Roof. And gosh, really, there’s little better than watching your daughter watch something for the very first time. It was no different than when I took Emily to see The Sound of Music last year. I cried like a baby, not from the actual production, but from watching my child taking it all in.

AND we did something I hadn’t had on my original list of things to do in the south….

We ate S’mores for the very first time.

Obviously, we didn’t like them. Ahem.

And lest you think it was all cuddles and fun and games and tutus…I assure you, it was not. There were at least 2 EARLY morning wake-ups. There were at least eight Isabella tantrums, and at least six 4-minute time-outs in her room. There was at least two “You are the worst mother in the whole world!”s. There was at least one hair-pulling incident. There were at least two difficult bedtimes. There were at least 3 baths given because a child was sticky or covered in blood from a 6am nosebleed or covered in play-doh. There was at least one stomach ache, at least one headache, and at least one toothache. There were at least four door slams. There were at least 19 whines. There were at least thirty, “Mooooooooommmmmmmmmmmy, can you get me ______?”s. There were less than thirty thanks yous.

So, yes, not all good times, but, you know, we had the chocolatey, marshmallowy, graham crackery deliciousness. S’mores make awesome band-aids.

If you want to see more of me – and, I mean, obviously, you do – you can read my latest entertainment news over at Juice, including my latest thoughts on LOST, my latest outfit over at The Urban Closet, my latest advice over at So You Want It, and my latest blathering over at Aiming Low, where we are talking about the most interesting place you’ve ever, um, made whoopee.