Going to the Beach (Or so I thought)

     As the next couple of weeks pass by, Jessica and I become closer and she comes to the store and helps me more.  This was good because we needed to get to know each other. After all, I am eleven years older than her and we never got to know each other. I have a sister but I have never been close to her and I always thought that sisters were supposed to be close.    
     When I was 17 and met them all that one time, I remember Jessica more than anyone. My mom always told me that I rolled my eyes just like my dad and that would make me so mad because she was telling me that I was like him and from all that I had grown up knowing, I DID NOT want to be like my dad.  Well, meeting Jessica, I quickly learned that I definitely looked like my dad. Seeing her at the age of 6 was like looking into a mirror of my past and seeing me at 6 all over again.
    
By this point, she starts telling me that she is going to our brother's house in Foley, AL and that is where our dad and her mother live.  She then proceeds to ask me to go with her.  I was EXTREMELY hesitant because I was determined I was not going to meet Jesse (this is my dad and that is what I called him at this point) nor Paul our brother. If I decided to go, it was strictly going to be a trip to the beach for me.  Her plan was to take her son down there to spend a couple of weeks. It took me a lot of thinking and praying and studying about this before I would even consider it.  But I decided, what the heck, a weekend trip to the beach would be great. Boy did I not know how wrong I was going to be about 'a trip to the beach'. 
     We start out and finally get on the road about 6 p.m. June 11, 2011 heading to Foley, AL.  It was Jessica, six children, and myself. I wasn't so sure how it was going to go driving six and a half hours with that many kids but they were great.  We finally got into Foley around 2 a.m. but it took us until 3 a.m. before we found a hotel that had an available room. (I was determined to NOT stay at Paul's house) We find a room and we slept for a few hours until time to check out and we load up and I take them all to Paul's house and drop them off and I go into Foley and look around at some of the shops and things and wait until Jessica texts me to let me know she was ready for me to pick her up. All was smooth sailing this trip.
     We head on down to Gulf Shores,which is only about 15 minutes or so from Paul's, and let the kids play in the bay and then over into the ocean. It was so nice to enjoy the breeze and the waves and to get our feet wet in the ocean. But time came that we had to leave and find a hotel room for the night and we did. We found Cornerstone Lodge of Foley and they had a swimming pool so the kids could enjoy themselves and we could relax.
     Jessica and I sat and relaxed and talked while the kids swam. She told me that she didn't want Paul to think that I didn't want anything to do with him because of problems the two of them had had. She said she had told him that I was just not ready to meet him or Jesse or Patsy (their mom) just yet. Well she gets a phone call and it was kind of weird and before she hung up, she told whomever she was talking to that she would see and let them know.
     Well, when she got off the phone, I asked if everything was alright. She assured me it was but that Paul had ordered a bunch of pizza and they wanted the two of us and the rest of the kids to come eat.  I told her that I would be happy to take them over there and I would go get me something elsewhere.  Well that just opened me up for a quiz. She then wants to know what I am scared of. Hmmm, I had not thought about that before. I told her I guess it was of the not knowing how it would go. How they would react to me and how I would react to them. So we decided to take the kids and let them eat pizza and the two of us would go eat out and spend some quality sister time together.
     We get showered and ready and load the kids up and head that way.....