Fox Beach Trip 2013

We just spent a week at Holden Beach with Jason's parents and his sister's family.  We rented the same house that we rented last year, which is a great fit for us.  It is right on the beach with our own private beach access.  It has sand and water and that's about all we need.

This was Evelyn's 3rd time at the beach.  We took her twice last year (Holden Beach and then Panama City).  This trip was our first opportunity to meet our new nephew, Dylan, who is about a month older than Evelyn.  It was fun to have the little ones all together.

Jason suggested that we make this an unplugged vacation, so we pretty much stayed off our cell phones, computers, televisions and other devices.  At first it was a little hard not to watch TV, but I found myself spending more time with the kids, taking walks on the beach and reading books, and that is definitely time much better spent.  After we got back, Jason and I talked a bit about what we learned and how to balance our lives a little better away from our electronics.

I took about 700 photos at the beach, and I am not in a single one of them.  Believe it or not, these are just my favorite photos from our great trip.

I always love this guy's reaction when he sees the beach for the first time.

This little lady wasn't so sure about the water at first, but she quickly warmed up to the sand (and discovered that it is not good for eating).

Fat, fat, fat baby legs... I could just eat 'em up.

This is our sweet nephew, Dylan, enjoying his bottle on the sand.

The big kids were much more interested in playing in the sand than they were last year.  We dug lots and lots of holes and built mountains and tunnels and buried ourselves.  I think I will probably be washing sand out of clothes and towels for a few more weeks.

Dylan enjoyed quite a few outdoor naps in the great weather.

This has to be one of my favorite photos from the trip.  It looks like he caught that shark.

My beautiful girl in the sunshine.

Grandpa played music for the kids on his iPad, and they loved it.  It made for some really great snuggle time.

We chased some seagulls.

Jason's parents even enjoyed some time in the surf with their "little ones" (who are now in their thirties).

We had great weather - just a few storms here and there, but they quickly cleared out.  One day, we took the kids to the aquarium.  Another day, we played with play-doh.  Grandpa designed some pretty nifty cars.

The very last thing we did on our last day was to feed the seagulls.  Of course, Miles and Vivienne loved this.  Dylan also found it particularly entertaining.

It was a wonderful trip, and we're already looking forward to our next adventure at the beach.

We Have a Crawler!

It's official.  We have a crawler now.  Evelyn has become the master roller over the past few months.  Once she perfected her pivot, she could pretty much roll to any spot she desired, besides going up stairs. 

On Saturday morning, we saw her first really clear crawl (a couple of crawl "steps" back to back).  By Saturday afternoon, she was crawling 4 or 5 feet to a new toy or the basket of books (real deal, up on the hands and knees crawling). 

I am both excited about this new development and nervous.  Up to this point, I could center her in the room with some toys and I knew that she wasn't going to go too incredibly far.  This allowed me to get ready quickly in the morning or do quick chores in another room without having to watch her like a hawk.  Now I may have lost some of that freedom, but it's worth it for her to have more freedom herself. 

Summer is Here!

Yesterday, we took our first trip to the neighborhood pool.  This was Evelyn's first time in a swimming pool, but she really seemed to enjoy floating around in her float.  The water was very, very cold, so we didn't stay long.  Miles and Vivienne were initially somewhat wary of the water and nervous.  But within about 5 minutes, they had warmed up and were swimming all over the pool and jumping in from the sides.  We were glad to see them find comfort in the water so quickly.  Right now, we still have them using puddle jumpers, but we're hoping to have them out of them by the end of the summer.  It is hard for me when I don't have lots of extra hands, because I want to keep a very close eye on the kids if they aren't using flotation devices.

Miles' teeth were chattering almost from the beginning, because the water was so frigid.  But he still went into a deep state of mourning when we had to leave the pool.  We'll swim a lot more this year, Buddy.  Just you wait.