THE BEACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well it's all over...51 weeks til vacation. All in all, it was a highly successful vacation, not interrupted by rain at all, save for a dark cloud that rolled in, looking threatening, around 4:30 on Friday. So that actually was perfect, since we needed to start dinner anyways. But let's start at the beginning....

Saturday morning, we loaded up the car and headed to Virginia, our halfway destination that is anything less than paradise. All things considered, it is what it is, and you deal with the bumps in the road. We were unsure how Princess would deal with the long car ride, but we hoped that movies and books would hopefully keep her occupied. Well, adults get bored on long car rides, you can't expect much more from a child with endless energy. Couple that with her not being able to figure out how to fall asleep in a booster seat, not a car seat, and frustrations boiled over. Luckily, though, there were few issues with Princess and her fear of public restrooms, as she just put her fingers in her ears and sang rather loudly every time. Since I, myself, had a fear of public restrooms until I was 18 years old and living in a share-potty dorm, thus forcing me to use them, I completely understand this little quirk of hers, but the fingers in the ear thing, we would later learn, was a new "scare tactic."

But finally, we arrived in Virginia. Arriving at 4:30 is not exactly ideal, as it is just close enough to dinner time to make staying in the room a necessity, but we were sure that after dinner, she would spend plenty of time in the swimming pool. So while everyone went to church, Princess and I stayed back and unpacked our clothes and ate dinner. (Thank goodness the hotel has a microfridge in every room!!) After dinner, I tried to get her to "suit up" and go swimming, but she was having nothing to do with it. She was also pretty tired. Since I wasn't really in the mood to take her to the pool entirely by myself, I didn't really push it, choosing to wait until everyone else returned. But once they did, she still didn't want to leave the room....Oh well, she's tired and burning off the pent up energy from the long car ride, so whatever.

Sunday came and it was off to THE BEACH!! This car ride, unlike the previous day's, was far worse, with frustrations bubbling WAY over. She was finally able to fall asleep, though it didn't last long. If I didn't entirely hate the new booster seat law before, I TOTALLY do now. If she didn't have that damn seat, she could've laid down, just like we always used to do on long car trips, but I digress....


Once we got to where we could see the ocean, the excitement mounted. "There she is! There's the ocean!!!" said Princess. Upon arriving at our house, she was in her bathing suit about 10 minutes in, and down on the beach with the boys, while Mommy and Grandma made beds and set up the house. I mean, hey...somebody has to do it. Last year, she went in the ocean with Daddy carrying her and them jumping into big waves together, so I told Daddy that if she was going in, he was taking her. At 45 pounds, I'm not holding her and jumping, I'm just not built for it!! She's almost half my size anyways!! (Not in weight, mind you, but height.) Once I finished setting us up and unpacking, I headed down to the beach, sand toys in hand, for some beach time before dinner. Fun times....but sans nap, Princess was in bed before 9:00 and asleep shortly after that. LET THE ADULT FUN BEGIN!!!!

Monday, the heat index was 105 degrees....HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT. Needless to say, Princess didn't last much on the beach. Neither did many of us, for that matter, without many breaks. But Tuesday would be another story. Daddy had gone golfing in the morning with the boys, leaving me to be with Princess. I tried to get her to play in the sand, but she wasn't interested. I can't say that I blame her much, that sand is BLAZING hot, so she wanted to go swimming. Well the ocean was, thankfully, quite calm, so I decided I would take her. We lotioned up, got in our bathing suits, and headed to the beach. Unlike Daddy, I told her that I would not carry her. I told her that she is a big girl, not a baby, and if she really wanted to go down to the beach and go swimming, she needed to walk. She was apprehensive, and did not want to walk on the sand, a small concession I made, but we made it to the ocean.

As we stood on the shore, looking into the ocean, she started her attempt to climb up my leg, much like a squirrel up a tree, and I repeated again, "I'm not going to carry you, if you wanna swim, we'll go in together," and she started to walk in....THAT WAS ALL SHE WROTE. 2 hours later, after a wave crashed up her nose as she was sitting on her butt floating, she had had enough. The rest of the week continued on much like this. Princess would spend a couple hours swimming every day, effectively turning into a dolphin. (Coincidentally, we did not see any of those this year...)

All in all, she did great. She played with her uncles (TEBOOOOO) and posed for pictures. Though there was a few instances when she was terrified of certain people (we have no idea why, because at the beginning of the week she was fine) and adopted her fingers-in-the-ears-crying pose, but she had fun. We took a couple of walks on the beach, drank alot of adult beverages, and had some awesome food. So like I said...51 weeks til vacation. For now, it's back to "normal" and more fun....