There’s a quote I’ve seen shared numerous times over the past few years … to the point that I wonder if it’s become cliche.

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” – Vivian Greene

 

But on days like today, when we’re in the midst of vacation in a normally beautiful locale and periods of driving rain, it feels appropriate because goshdarnit, sometimes you just have to find a way to dance.

I woke up to high humidity, pretty strong winds and no signs of an exit of the little man from said little man’s room so I decided to hit the pavement for a quick run. It was as humid as I thought, but I was happy to have gotten that out of the way.

When I got back, we arranged for our upcoming visit to Universal Studios with complimentary transportation. Pre-planning win. Oh, and we just so happened to be near a Starbucks’ Americano-serving deli. Double win.

We found our way to one of the giant Outdoor World stores and looked at stuffed animals. Well, I guess they would actually classify as taxidermy but ‘stuffed animals’ just sounds less violent and gross. Most of us also tried our hands at the play gun shooting arcade. I realized I might have fun shooting a gun more often. They are great for ‘unloading.’ I know. You’re welcome. I’ll be here all night.

I had also seen there was a Dave & Buster’s in town and I’d never been and I knew Connor would go insane. Kind of literally, too. We got there and after we dropped a paycheck paid for our points, I think I saw his eyes turn all the way around. That place was awesome. There seemed to be two groups of people with kids … those that enjoy a beverage as they walk around pretend to cheer on their kids and then those who get pretty fired up about scoring as many tickets as possible. Guess which camp I fall into? We may or may not have found a couple games we knew we could score 60 tickets out of. After a quick hour (I think), we had 890 tickets (which is actually quite low for the normal haul at that joint) and burned about the same amount of time finding ways to spend our winnings in the ‘Winner’s Circle.’ That’s always my least favorite part of any arcade visit. Seriously. How can they find so many useless toys to assign ticket values? Finger beams, anyone? (And yes, we have those now).

When we got back, the rain ended pretty quickly and the clouds started to separate to allow the sun to make her grand entrance for the day … just before sunset. I hauled the kiddos (mine begrudgingly) downstairs so we could celebrate. I don’t think that the weather could have lent itself to any more a glorious sunset. I asked the kids to show our appreciation in return.

l-o-v-e

And that, my friends, is how you learn to dance.