Back to the Beach

We had lofty goals for an awesome 4th of July weekend at the beach this year…and we did have an awesome day at the beach on Tybee Island with Aunt Miss and Uncle Whit on the Saturday before the big holiday! We got up early (as usual) and, to my surprise, our feet were in the sand by 11am! We let the girls have some “warm up” time, and attempted to hit the waves!

Macy was pretty interested right away…she let Daddy carry her into the surf, and LOVED splashing in the ocean and even blowing bubbles and dunking her face! Makayla wasn’t quite so eager! We tried letting her walk, we tried carrying her, and she was just a little too afraid of the crashing waves. We resorted to spending some time in the sand, and she enjoyed playing for a bit, and then realized just how dirty she was!  

 After continuously asking for “napkins” to get the sand off, I finally just carried her in to the ocean far enough to wash off a bit, and she was less than happy about it…of course she was happy to be clean, so we headed up to the shady area and planted her on a chair where she could stay clean.

Macy finally got out of the water for a while too, and the girls enjoyed a snack on the beach. After a messy snack of cheese puffs, I knew Makayla needed to be washed off and just picked her up and carried her toward the shoreline while explaining that it was time to wash her hands! Amazingly enough, this time she was PERFECTLY content…she let me dip her in to clean up, then LOVED it when I bounced her around and enjoyed the cool water. Macy came back out to play, and all 6 of us were able to enjoy some good times in the waves before time to eat!

We were all kind of tired, and looking forward to some island drinks and seafood…however, unfortunately, lunch was slow and the girls hit their limits, so I had to make a quick exit to the car where they IMMEDIATELY passed out! Fortunately, sitting in the cool car wasn’t so bad for me either, and we were able to end the fun afternoon with a nice long nap!

Aside from the Saturday beach adventures, we had a long trip down on Friday, which began by Makayla getting sick all over the car before we made it to Charlotte. Not to be deterred from our trip, we stopped at the store, grabbed some cleaning supplies, cleaned up and headed on. We successfully made it to downtown Savannah where we met Aunt Miss and planned for some time at the splash pad. The girls had little interest, so we all went and hung out on the deck of Wild Wings while Marley and the girls enjoyed a break from the car.

We had a few more moments of random puking (I’ll spare the details) on Friday, but were pleasantly surprised to see NO signs of sickness all day on Saturday. Unfortunately, Sunday morning was a different story. Makayla got sick enough that we decided that a doctor visit was in order, only to get back to Miss’s house to realize that Gary was starting to feel bad as well. We grabbed some lunch with the family, then quickly packed our bags and headed home. It was a LONG trip, with lots of stops along the way, and I’ll just sum it up by saying that Macy now points to her sand bucket and says – “Macy Sick”…Ugh!!

We did have some good times in Savannah and on Tybee, and were very grateful for our awesome host and hostess…unfortunately, between the timing of our trip and all of the puking, we weren’t able to enjoy a SINGLE firework this year. I’m pretty sure the girls would have been terrified by them anyway, so we will just have to look forward to better success next year!

Back when we sang Happy Birthday to Emmy Cate…

Since I’m SO far behind on this post, I can’t even use it as a chance to give a belated birthday shout out to our sweet niece, Emmy Cate…and, unfortunately, her mom is a much better blogger than I, so she blogged about this months ago...however, I did have some cute pictures of Emmy and the girls (along with a random assortment of farm friends), as well as the other cousins, from when we headed to Atlanta to celebrate her 2nd birthday! (All of the pictures can be viewed in the album here)  Aunt Lauren and Uncle Nathan provided an awesome celebration, complete with a petting zoo in their own back yard…the girls thought it was AWESOME…except for the chickens…Makayla HATED those things! It took them some time to warm up, but before the party was over, they were petting the bunnies, sitting on the pony, and just enjoyed the experience. Ironically, the best part of the party for them was when they let balloons into the air. We still regularly hear about letting balloons go up in the air and constant reference to Emmy Cate’s birthday party!

The weekend was also even more exciting due to the fact that we got to stay at Haley and Noah’s house! Unfortunately, we didn’t arrive until late evening, so we had to hit the bed pretty early on Friday night, but the girls were delighted to wake up to have hours of play time with Haley! They played with balls, played with bubbles, swung and slid on slides, and even jumped on the neighbor’s trampoline…SO MUCH fun! And, of course, loved helping to feed baby Noah!!

Unfortunately, Daddy wasn’t able to make it on the trip, but we had a fun weekend and the girls LOVED getting to spend time with their cousins!