Doots Goes to the Ocean

We were on vacation last week. Glorious, glorious vacation.

We went to the beach in North Carolina. We drove there in the Honda Fit and stayed in a four bedroom house with 8/9 adults and 4 kids. You aren't feeling jealous of our vacation are you?

Well you should! It was fantastic.

Audrey was incredibly good in the car. Like angel level good, so the drive was not bad at all. Two 7ish hour days to get there, a bit longer on the way home because Virginia is stupid.

The house worked out great. It had an amazing porch with a great ocean view and breeze. It was smallish for the number of people we had, but who needs to sit in a house when the beach is so close.

                                     View from the front deck. Apparently before hurricane Sandy there was 150 feet of beach there and that house was not in the water.

Best of all Audrey got to spend lots of time with grandma, grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

All of her cousins were there, including Seth and Luke who are 7 and 8. They both loved their little cousins, Audrey and Anders. They played with them so much.

My favorite though, was how helpful Seth was with Audrey, I truly mean this. He often would say things like "do you want me to watch her so you  can eat?" Yes, little man I do. That would be wonderful. He would then take her to the living room and make sure she didn't hit her head or eat the carpet or whatever it is babies do (we could see the living room we weren't making the poor kid be an adult).

I also loved how smitten Luke was with both of the little people. He could not get enough and it was just so cute. Love those little boys.

Audrey and Anders are still a bit young to enjoy one another, he is 18 months. So really, Audrey is young to enjoy him. But he was pretty darn cute with her. He kept bringing her toys to her, such a nice little guy. Audrey is blessed with great cousins. Her aunts, uncles, and granparents are great too but the cousins are just too cute.

Enough about family, most of you don't care about that stuff.

I was a slacker on vacation. I barely took any pictures. We didn't even get a family picture or a picture with everyone. I failed. But, at least I have some.

I did get the most adorable picture of Audrey on the beach BUT there was a smudge on my lens. I don't care, you are going to have to look at this picture smudge and all. It is just that cute.

Audrey loved the ocean. She was a bit unsure of the waves at first, but by the second day she was all about kicking and splashing in the water. It was adorable. She would watch the ocean and when a wave was coming she would kick her feet in excitement. So cute. She didn't even mind getting splashed in the face. Such a water baby.

She also loved playing in the sand. Though really, she just wanted to shovel handfuls of sand into her mouth. I am fine with her eating a little sand, let's be realistic. But I draw the line at handful after handful to the mouth, that can't be good for a baby.

It seems Audrey also finds the ocean relaxing. She fell asleep almost instantly every time she was in the carrier at the beach. This is not normal. She rarely falls asleep on walks in the carrier. She even fell asleep when I had her in the water wrap in the waves.

In fact, the ocean made her so sleepy we changed the noise on her sounds machine to waves. I can't say that it has helped her sleep but that is a story for another day.

Sleep is our only vacation complaint. Audrey was awful at night on vacation. She napped super well but night was horrible. Just horrible. However, we both agreed we would gladly take poor night sleep over screaming baby in the car for 7 hours. That would have been awful. Good choice little lady.

I would say the little lady had a pretty good first vacation. She got to got to the beach, try ice cream for the first time (it was only a tiny bit), spend lots of time with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, and hang out with mom and dad for a week straight. Not too bad at all.

We had a pretty fantastic time as well!