We all got to travel down to Sarasota, FL for Aunt Betty’s 90th Birthday Party. Going with an infant was challenging, but seeing all the family and making it to Aunt Betty’s party made it fun. While there we also got to celebrate my dad’s birthday as a family, something we don’t get to do often now that we live on the other side of the country.
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This last week we had a family vacation. We stayed home because it was easiest with Alex but did we dedicated our time to each other, having fun, and doing the things that we wanted to do as a family. We did A LOT. I have pictures of it all of course and a few of the kids and I at home playing while AJ was at work the week before I am going to throw in for good measure of Alex sitting up, and Brooke ‘mowing’ the lawn. On our vacation we went to an indoor trampoline park, went kayaking, hiking, AJ and I got a date night on the bay, we worked out as a family, went to Bergey’s farm and pet animals and had ice cream, had many days at the pool, went to the NBG and played around with their new frame exhibit and at the splash pad, picked blueberries, I made blueberry pie, ate hamburgers for a 4th of July cookout, went to the fireworks festival at Chesapeake City Park, and had park playtime!
This last week we took a beach vacation and rented a small house at the north end beach in Virginia Beach. We had a good time though will not rent locally again, but because I know better this pregnancy that only a fool leaves your doctors at the end of pregnancy AJ humored me the location for this trip. Even though we were only 30 minutes from home we stayed in the oceanfront area the whole week and didn’t venture past a 4 mile radius of the beach house. The first day there it rained and so we went the Aquarium to spend the morning and got to venture out to the beach that evening. AJ and I had a lovely dinner at ‘One Fish Two Fish’ on the Lynnheaven Inlet for our 6 year wedding anniversary. The next morning I had some pregnancy insomnia and got to see what the beach looked like at 6am. Naturally I took my tea with me. We went to the beach everyday and in the evening biked to the boardwalk or to First Landing State Park, saw a boardwalk concert, and took Brooke to the nearby parks to play on the playground. We spent a morning at ‘The Narrows’ the inlet beach in First Landing State Park as well. Though we had to stay out of the water because of two rowdy sting rays and a lot of jellyfish. We had a great time and our beach baby loved endless destruction of sand shapes we created, being buried almost daily in sand, burying Mommy or Dadda, going on walks and getting shoulder (Dadda) and piggyback (Mommy) rides, playing in the shallow waves, collecting water and dumping it on the ground, herself, us, and of course being out in the ocean waves jumping and dunking for hours. It was a wonderful restorative trip and so nice to spend time together un-distracted from life as a family.
We took Brooke to the Great Wolf Lodge last week for a family vacation. The Great Wolf Lodge is a water park that caters to children and families. It was the first time that we all stayed in one room and Brooke slept in the pull out sofa. She was so used to her big girl bed (and she was so tuckered out from all the fun) that she was a champ and napped and slept wonderfully with us 4 feet away (behind a 6 foot partition). The water park had everything! They had a large pool just for toddlers which included water slides. Brooke loved to go down the slides and kept saying ‘more’ at the end of each ride. There was also a large playground full of different water buckets and wheels to turn which would change the pattern of the water coming out. One of Brooke’s favorite things to do (which we unfortunately could not capture because it was too wet in that area) was have Laura hold the bucket with it pouring out just a little. Brooke would put her hand under the stream and Laura would warn her with “aaaaaa splash!’ and then pour more water out splashing Brooke’s hand and body. Brooke again would laugh and say ‘more’! There were lots of water slides for adults that I went down and even a few that were safe for Laura too. There was an ocean pool that we splashed in the waves. Lots of small fountains that Brooke liked to walk through or put her hands in. Also there was a pool with basketball hoops and Brooke loved playing with the ball and I helped her with a few slam dunks. Every night there was storytime in the lobby which Brooke attended, also other fun things like dance parties and an arcade and cub club where she could draw/color to her hearts content and had a variety of toys to play with. We had such a great time that we even stayed an extra night.
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We got to go back to AZ for a nice vacation last week to see family and friends. We spent several days up in Phoenix visiting with Grammy, Grandpa, Aunt Allison and got to see Teta and Uncle Brad. We ended our trip in Tucson visiting with Oma, Opa, and Tia Christine. It was nice getting to see all of our family and friends too.
