Arrived around lunch and it was time to begin vacation. We went to lunch with my parents and Michelle and I think they started to get an appreciation for how truly active Isla is. She doesn't like to sit down, and really didn't most of the meal. She spent most of the meal wandering the outdoor patio where we were sitting. The high point was when she touched some man's butt who was sitting on a bar stool. He turned around every which way to see what that was, but didn't look down until he heard us all laughing and calling Isla back to the table. Thankfully he got a good chuckle out of it too.
Maeve and Katie arrived that evening! We were so excited to finally meet Maeve. She is quite the adorable little thing, with such a laid back demeanor - not at all what we expected from Katie's child, but we'll just wait for the next kid. When we hit up the pool we found out that Maeve and Isla were twins...at least for one of the days. This was the best picture I got...it's tough getting these two to look in the same direction at the same time!
Isla and Maeve aren't quite ready to play with each other, but did well playing next to each other. Think when they see each other this summer it'll be quite fun to see them interact. I didn't get a picture of Sawyer, but she would often sit down next to Maeve and rub her back. She is more gentle with her cousin than her sister!
We went mostly to the pool but did introduce Isla and Sawyer to the beach. Sawyer LOVED both. She would get to the beach and lay down and just roll around in the sand. It was the strangest thing to see, but it was like she loved the feeling of it. At the pool, Sawyer learned to swim with a vest on and would tell everyone "I can do it myself". She also spent the day ordering Grandpa around. She wanted him to watch everything that she did. Isla took a little time to get used to the pool but enjoyed herself once there. The beach was another story. This was her first trip - she hadn't played in a sandbox before, and hadn't been to a beach. Her feet touched the sand and she cried. She eventually became ok with walking on the sand by the water, but was not at all liking the ocean. Here she is, not at all happy about that tide coming towards her.
Never one to sit out on something her sister is doing, she eventually got into playing with the sand. She didn't really love the feeling on her hands, but was more than happy to play with a shovel.
More playing, but sunset view.
And even found her smile by the end of the night. It did take her another day or two before she would actually walk on the real sand though. On the last day she was brave enough to go in the ocean and loved every second. Aunt Katie has lots more pictures than me, but her and I spent probably an hour in the gulf jumping waves. Despite splashes to her face she had no desire to get out.
They look like angels, but an hour before this they were driving us all crazy at dinner. Actually Sawyer was good, but Isla has no business being in a restaurant right now - she's uncontrollable!
I tried to do a bit of a photo shoot the one morning. It was a half hearted effort which may be why it didn't work, but they weren't overly well behaved either. I really needed to be there a week and let them get adjusted before trying something like this. The outfits are super cute though so wanted to atleast try.
The two best shots that I got...
This girl seemed to love everything about this vacation - the pool, the beach, the ocean. Looks like I'm going to have to lock in a trip for next spring to make sure we get back to it. She's also quite keen on taking swim lessons this summer and learning how to swim all by herself.
I don't have a great picture from our last day, but will have to get it from Julie and Katie. On Saturday we spent the day at the beach with Julie, Bill, Kaitlyn, Lauren, and Alexa. I think it's safe to say they had a great time together. Sawyer and Alexa were buds playing in the sand for most of the day but all of the kids got along really well. It makes me very excited for our family trip this summer. After that, we all got dressed and went over to Aunt Mary's and Uncle Duffy's for a pool party with them and Colleen's family and Grandpa Griffin. I brought my suit but upon feeling the cold water I bailed. I did cave and let Isla go into the non-heated hot tub area and spent a while bouncing her up and down. She dunked herself at least once and kept climbing up onto the ledges Kelly and Kaitlyn are sitting on and trying to jump into the bigger pool so I eventually let her jump to Kelly. The girl gets serious separation anxiety though so as soon as she realized she jumped to someone other than me, she was crying and back in my arms.
The flight home was not as good as the one there. Isla was pretty good, but Sawyer was tired and refused to share anything with her sister. She broke out crying several times, and my goodness she is loud. Ultimately we made it only to have her cry through the last half of our walk in the airport because "her knees hurt" and she wanted to be carried. Though I don't do it often I stood my ground and refused, making her walk, and so we are likely on some you tube video with her throwing quite a tantrum. Finally got in the car and she threw another tantrum with Mark only to fall asleep slumped over mid-cry. It was rough to say the least, and I gave myself a two hour time-out in my room to try and regroup.
All in all, I am 100% convinced we need to go on a spring break vacation next year - a full week this time - and 100% convinced that Mark needs to join us because for all the crying and crabbiness I endured it was really fun to see them enjoying swimming and playing at the beach like I did as a kid and I don't want him to miss it.
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