Tuesday, September 6, 2011

St. Augustine - Labor Day Weekend

We had a GREAT vacation and I have a TON of pictures to share. Just be aware that this is a LONG post.

August 31st:

After our doctor's appointment, James and I came home and packed up to head to the beach. It was a lonnnng day for both of us. Almost-two is trying my patience and I (the overly-emotional one right now) don't have much patience right now anyway. However, we got our bags packed and got everything ready for Eddie to get home from work.

We wound up leaving later than we wanted to - 6:30. We still had to drive to Tifton to drop Scout off at "Camp Fresh" and visit with Grandmama and Granddaddy. We got to their house, got Scout out, fed James, played for a minute, went to the bathroom, and got back in the car. I'm not sure we were there for an hour!

We decided to stop in Valdosta at Wendy's for dinner. When Eddie asked what I wanted I told him a baked potato and french fries. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. We had dinner on the road and I made the HUGE error of setting up the DVD player and turning on Mickey. James did not sleep a wink for the entire trip. :) Please note that we left Tifton around 8:30 and arrived at midnight. Awesome!

When we got to the condo we saw these:



Mom got Leta to make boy/girl cookies so that we could have them when we got to the beach. We are SO lucky to have Leta. These are the best sugar cookies that anyone makes. I promise.

James got a little wound up once we arrived and had a hard time falling asleep and a hard time staying asleep. None of us slept well. He was, of course, up bright and early the next morning!

September 1st:

We went to the pool after we got up and got going. James showed off his "swimming" skills - aka, his fearlessness around water. We put his swimmies on and he wouldn't let anyone touch him. He just wanted to go on his own. At one point (I think it was the 1st, but I'm not sure) he climbed out of the pool and ran to the deep end (alone) and jumped in from the ladder. No one told him to and we sure weren't ready for him to do that! He is BRAVE. He is also going to be taking swimming lessons next summer.

After a LONG afternoon nap we spent some time on the beach.


(Mama is going to kill me for this, but I thought it was a sweet picture!)


You'll see in other pictures that the stretch of beach where Mom and Sonny's condo is is rocky. It really is just south of St. Augustine (just south of Marineland if you're familiar with the area) but there's about a 10 mile stretch of beach that has coquina rocks. Mom loves it and it is pretty, but the beach is gone pretty quickly once the tide starts coming back in. One of the things I love about it, though, is that tide pools pop up EVERYWHERE in the holes. It is so much fun to see what creatures are in them!



Eddie is well-educated in beach life. He showed James the little crabs he was finding. James is an animal lover from afar, though, and the crabs freaked him out. :)

He did finally touch it with one finger, though!

On Thursday night we had dinner at Saltwater Cowboys. I've been dreaming of their Southern Style Mahi since I got pregnant and they didn't have mahi while we were there!!! The shame! I ordered it with flounder instead and I was SO disappointed. It was okay, but it wasn't what I had in mind. When I was pregnant with James I had it two nights in a row and it was just delicious. Oh well. Maybe next time!

Anna and Lance arrived late, late, late on Thursday night.

September 2nd:

Apparently I forgot to take my camera everywhere I went. We spent more time at the pool and the beach. Anna and Lance were able to hang out in the morning but they went to Jacksonville to pick up John from the airport that afternoon. The highlight was Cacky's birthday!

James kept saying, "Happy Day!" He said it before we ever told him it was Cacky's birthday so I wonder if they had a birthday party on Tuesday at school before we left.



I got a little tickled at Mom because a few months ago she informed me that she'd bought her own birthday gift AND her own cake. I had no clue about the birthday gift but the cake was Anna and Lance's wedding cake. She called the lady who made it and had her make it for her birthday. It really is delicious! She gave Anna, John, and me gifts on Friday night and we each opened Elliott home movies that she'd had put on DVD. We watched them after dinner. They were really neat to have!

September 3rd:

More beach time!

James didn't mind the water or the wet sand but he was not a fan of sitting in the dry sand!




Sonny, Lance, Anna, James, John, me, and Eddie.


The girls are vastly outnumbered.



On Saturday night we got together with Eddie's cousin Cassie, her husband Travis, and their baby Thompson who just happened to be in St. Augustine the same weekend. We saw them a year ago on the same weekend. The babies have grown!

James was an ill pill because he was running on an hour-long nap. We had dinner at J.T.'s and then they came back to our condo so the babies could play and we could watch the start of the Georgia game. James was NOT into playing. When they were leaving we tried to get him to hug and kiss Thompson and he just was not having it. She is so precious!



September 4th:

More beach time on our last full day. James wanted to swim with his daddy so I yelled, "EDDIE!" and James started yelling "EDDIE!" with me. Ha! (This morning while Eddie was getting ready James called him Eddie to get his attention! Stinker!)



Before dinner we took a few beach pictures.






 





We had dinner at J.T.'s again but sat outside this time. There was a live band and James was totally into the music and dancing. He got up to dance several times!



Unfortunately, the beach trip had to end yesterday. We left the condo at 10:30 to head to the outlet malls. After we shopped for about two hours we hit the road again to Tifton. We visited with Grandmama, Granddaddy, Nancy, and Caylor, picked up Scout, and made it home right around 8pm. It was a lonnng day.

We thoroughly enjoyed our beach vacation. I couldn't help but wonder (with all of the poor sleeping and the amount of stuff required for a small child) if it will be our last for a while! We'll see!


1 comment:

Lauren said...

I love the family pics of you three!!! So so cute...and tell your mom that if I looked as good as she does I would be begging people to take pics of my backside and post them!