The Beach!

Although I have been to see the beach, and occasionally swim in it, I had never been on a "beach vacation." However, when friends of ours invited us to join them in a big house on the beach with 2 other couples for a week, we decided to go for it! We couldn't actually do the whole week, but we enjoyed our Wednesday-Sunday immensely and can't wait to go back. We drove up to the panhandle and got beautiful weather at our house right on the Gulf.

Here are a whole bunch of photos to give you an idea of what a good time we had!

But first, here was Meredith's response to my attempt to pack her suitcase for the trip.

I actually couldn't get her to stay out of it so I waited for Rob to get home in order to have a chance to throw her clothes in!

The first morning we were there, Meredith got to see the ocean for the first time! It was windy but beautiful.

A happy girl with her daddy!
Walking toward the water...
...making the cutest footprints! (If you click on the photo you can see her Canada sweatshirt, pony tail, and little pink shorts close up! So cute!)

There's the water - wow!

Checking out the sand with Mommy.

Ready to try the water with Daddy? This series of photos gives you the idea...



...ummm.....
...c'mon honey, it's ok....
....NO !!!!
Ah, safe once more!
The next day Meredith played with her "bee" in the sand. We forgot to buy her some buckets and shovels, but she didn't notice :)
We played on the beach again the next day with a different swimsuit! (Let's be clear, though, there was no interest in swimming....)

Meredith was doing the actions for her favorite song, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". The photo below is "how I wonder what you are". Notice that she has a patch on her eye - we are doing this for 2 hours a day to help work on the strength of her weaker (right) eye. They make very cute patches these days, with girly themes, and they work just like bandaids. She's been very cooperative.

..."like a diamond in the sky" (well, a u-shape...)
Here's the gorgeous view from our back deck. I originally thought it wouldn't make much difference if we were right on the beach or a block or two away, but this convinced me that it's worth staying RIGHT there. We could sit on the deck and see dolphins' fins come up when they were swimming around out there. It was amazing!

Here's Meredith wandering around on one side of the deck (yes, all of the posts were checked for stability - Lindsay did it before I even got there!).


The other side of the deck had tables and we ate all of our meals out there. I didn't think to take a picture until the last day so we're missing one couple who had already left (sorry Kevin and Christina!). It is hard to describe my joy in eating so much food cooked by other people :)

Meredith enjoyed her new friend Eli!

This picture looks like something that would be in an alumni newsletter where some old roommates all got together after having babies around the same time. Well, we've never been roommates - actually all of us were already married when we met each other - but we all became moms within the last year and are having a great time!


Here's hoping for another chance to do this soon!

And now some unrelated updates - I like to mention key progress that Meredith makes when I put up a blog post. The news is exciting -- three big things:

1) After weekly appointments for 2 months, the occupational therapist is so happy with Meredith's fine-motor progress that we're cutting back to every-other-week for checking in with her.

2) On Easter, Meredith ate little pieces of ham by herself WITH A BABY FORK!!! I was in shock.

3) There is another new word, and it's the first one that is basically pronounced like the actual word (imagine that!). If you point to a button on your clothing, or to her belly button, she loudly tells you: "BUDN!" We could say it's her first 2-syllable word, but that second part doesn't really have a vowel so I don't know....but it is sure cute!

(Note: photos from Easter will be coming soon, but we need to organize them....Meredith was great at the Easter Egg Hunt!).