We had lots of fun and Ashley enjoyed meeting them.  She had her moments, but I think that’s because her top teeth must be cutting.  Teething makes for a cranky and clingy baby!  But for the most part, she was her usual happy self.  We went out to eat, walked on the beach, and relaxed by the pool.

The boys had a blast!  Pat and Ritt have a yellow lab at home, so they are also lab lovers.  Ritt played and played and played with them.  He swam with them in the pool, threw ball for them on the beach, and gave them lots of attention.  They soaked it all up!  They were so tired when we left that they ended up sleeping the whole way home.

You know how when things go smoothly it’s not really that memorable; but the things that don’t go as planned, those are the memories that really stay with you?  Well, our beach trip was certainly a memorable one.  First off, it took forever to leave the house.  After we got Ashley fed, changed, and lathered up, we packed the truck full of umbrellas, chairs, a tent, towels, a cooler, drinks, koozies, toys, and watermelon.  We unloaded everything at the public access and unpacked on the beach.  Van carried Ashley out there and when he arrived where we were sitting, his shirt was soaking wet.  Apparently, those Huggies Swimmers aren’t worth a darn.  I didn’t know this until now because when Ashley is in the pool, she is always wet so I had no way to know that the diapers leaked.  Not only did they leak all over Van, but we also found out she had left a deposit in there.  And these aren’t regular diapers either.  They are pull-ups!  How do you get a pull up off a baby without spilling the contents everywhere?!  Well, with the help of your Mom and sister of course!

Actually, let me back up a bit.  After discovering Ashley’s wetness, I had the brilliant idea of just putting her in the ocean to clean her off.  Ha!  Seriously?  Yea, I’m an idot.  I just held her while I stood in the ocean (didn’t even put her in) and she hated it.  It didn’t help that it was rough water yesterday.  She cried.  So I tried putting her in some water that had puddled up on the sand.  She cried.  I put her feet in the sand.  She cried.  We changed her diaper.  She cried.  Tried to put her suit back on.  She cried.  So we just left her naked with a clean diaper on.  She took about a 5 minute cat nap laying on my shoulder, and when she awoke she was good to go!  It was so funny.  Like she just needed to re-charge.  So from that point on, she was fine.  She ate some watermelon in her mesh feeder, lots of watermelon actually.  Played under the tent and entertained herself for quite a while.    When she began getting tired again, we packed it all up and came back home.

Man, it was exhausting.  She hated the water.  Hated the sand.  She was content just playing on a blanket under the tent.  So I don’t think we’ll be making another trek to the beach anytime soon.  All that work for such little reward.  Some would say it wasn’t worth it.  But having this story about Ashley’s first beach experience…priceless!

We left today and I’m planning on blogging every day about our little adventures.  It’s Ashley’s first vacation, so you know there will be lots of pictures to post!  We had a good trip down here, which was nice for a change.  The past few times we’ve made the road trip, Ashley has only slept the first 2 hours and then the last hour we have had to listen to her cry the rest of the way.  This time, she made it 2 hours, we stopped for a late lunch, fed her, changed her diaper, and then made it the last hour – with no crying – yay!  She even fell back asleep after our lunch break.  It really took us 4 hours to get here because of all the traffic getting on the island.  But Ashley did great despite being stuck in the car for an additional hour.

We arrived late afternoon and just relaxed a bit.  Aunt Jenn and Uncle Nathan are here so Ashley hammed it up for them.  We also got to see Uncle Eddie, Aunt Sibyl, and cousins Leslie, Blair and Hunter.  We all enjoyed a yummy steak dinner on the grill and chatted it up.  It was a nice start to our vacation.  Can’t wait to see what tomorrow has in store!