Beach Trip

So I am finally getting around to posting about our beach trip that happened nearly a month ago at this point (we were there May 18 through May 25)! We had a fabulous time with the Roberts and Arscott families at St. George Island, Florida, again this year. We were in a different house than we were last year, but this one was even nicer -- in terms of the house itself, but mostly because it was right on the beach. Jarrett and I even discovered our baby monitor would reach down where we set up the awnings and chairs. Perfect. And, speaking of perfect, we could not have asked for better weather for the entire week we were down there.

This year, Elsa discovered she really loved getting into the ocean and begged and begged to go in the "deep" part (meaning stomach/chest level), while holding onto Jarrett's hand. She also adored swimming in the pool with her various floaties, and sometimes, along with her other little buddies, preferred it even to being on the beach, much to the chagrin of us parents.

But we got a lot of beach time, nonetheless, and Aveline really loved it. You could place her in a chair or in the sand with a couple of buckets, hand her 10 or 20 seashells, and she would sit there, dropping shells into the buckets (plink, plink, plink), and dumping them from one bucket to the other or back out onto the sand. She could do this for 30 minutes to an hour. Delightful. Avie was not as wild as Elsa was about the ocean itself or the pool, but she still got her feet wet in the ocean, and enjoyed the pool for short bursts here and there, even more so after I purchased a baby floatie at a local store. She most enjoyed the baby pool we set up beside the big pool, stepping in and out of it, and pouring water from one container to the other. (Can you tell we are in the pouring stage?)

Us adults were able to get out and go to dinner together (with just Baby Robert in tow) twice, thanks to Shelly's mom and aunt, who happened to be staying at a condo just down the street for part of the time we were there. And us three girls got to go out to lunch/shopping one afternoon, while the guys went out fishing on a boat on another.

The trip was wonderful. Jarrett and decided we could have stayed another week... but maybe sans kids. They were probably reaching their limit. They did great, though. With two long car trips (around seven hours each way) and sharing the bunk room (Elsa, Avie, and Christian were in there -- Elsa and Christian on the two bottom bunks, and Avie in her pack-n-play) and just generally playing and sharing together, I was pretty amazed at how smoothly everything went. Here's to the hopes of another trip next year!