Weekend Adventures!

Family mini-cation overnight at the beach!

Low budget, quick camping trip? Yes. Planned. Packing started. The weather! Oh no. Cancel. Bummed. Break is needed. Beach? Maybe...Research. Discuss. Discuss again. Decide not to. Discuss some more. Change our minds. Ready, set, go! Um, someone's already in that room?!? Take two. Pool! Dinner...There's no cheese on my cheese burger?!? Ice cream!! Beach! Sunset. Seaweed mound. Crutches in the sand. Back to the pool! No bedtime! Pool's closing guys. Ok, bed ZZZZZZZZ. Roo it's 7am, go back to bed. Nope. Saturday morning cartoons? Where are the Saturday morning cartoons?? Treasure hunting movie. Breakfast poolside. Walk back to the beach. Crutches on sand some more. "Ok, Mom you fill my bucket with sand I gotta hit the water!" Time to go back. Dry clothes. Packing up. Is vacation over? We'll have "vacation" lunch and a "vacation" nap at home later.

We go home that afternoon and rest. Roo and I had somewhere to be in the morning.

Which Frozen shirt? Can't wait! Hair Glitter=Ice Powers!! BFF quality time (x2)! Frozen soundtrack at full volume on repeat. Was that my turn? Did I just pass the place? Great parking spot. Check in. Swap shoes for neon gripper socks. Did we miss them? Are they here? They're here! Hugs that could knock a girl over. A long chat with the royal sisters. Pictures! Time to jump. Boing! Boing! Jump dancing. A picture with the moms! The girls get back in line. One as mini-Elsa and mini-Anna! Let's all be in one. Everyone be Sven! Now be very cold! More jumping! Pizza break. Snacks. Cake pops. Anna and Elsa come to say goodbye. Raffle tickets? Didn't win. Potty break. More jumping. I'll help you up...uh-oh, help me up! A couple games. How many tickets, is it? Two lollipops, a bracelet and a ring. Want to share? Of course! Treats for good listeners in the car. Shoes back on. Bye! Frozen sticker books for Boo & Roo. More Frozen soundtrack! Home again. Nap time.

Beach Day

The beach is not my favorite. I'm not ungrateful to have it as an option, but physically it's less than easy for me. It's about as easy for me as bowling is for a T-Rex. It's not impossible and I do appreciate the atmosphere. Probably slightly more so than the dinosaur in the bowling ally. My crutches and fused ankle don't appreciate sand. My bad balance and fused back do not appreciate the waves. It makes my beach trips infrequent, but not completely out of the question.

I had a horrible illness and several days in bed. It was time for fresh air. Everyone gets stir crazy when Mom's that sick. Riley had announced the week before she wanted to learn to swim. Even if I just laid on the towel snapping pictures it was time for the beach.

click any picture to enlarge

Like A Fish to Water

We brought Riley some awesome Nemo floaties from our honeymoon. She'd only used them once in a full bathtub until yesterday. I'm not a big beach fan (bad balance + sand and waves= trouble) so my kids don't go very often. Yesterday, we met Mike's aunts at thier hotel so we could go swimming. Pools with a view of the beach are totally the way to go. It was a beautiful day. We stopped on the way for a new bottle of spray on sunscreen, love that stuff.

She took to the water like a fish. In hindsight, I should have gotten myself ready and then her, but Aunt Lara was already in the pool so she didn't have to wait for Mommy. The pool was even heated which was awesome. I found the fun noodle to be a great way to stay a float as well as correl my swimming todler. She swam the length of the pool at least twice. It was a lot of fun.

When it was time to go it was very difficult to get my little fish out of the pool. Later that day when she woke from nap she was still saying "I wanna swim for 2 more minutes, Mommy." My little fish objected to a swim break until she was pruney and exhausted. That's when after, getting her into dry clothes, she had a little break down. It was only at this time Mommy realized it was an hour past nap time. Oops. She did not as I had hoped sleep on the drive home. We had grapes before we left, but we got milkshakes in the drive thru too. I think besides being worn out were a little hungry.

We went home and we both had a much needed nap. She really enjoyed her swim time and I did too. Nothing like a warm pool. We'll have to do some more swimming over the summer.