Trip to the Beach

Since Tuesday's settlement, things have been a little crazy with trying to get things done at the house so there has not been much downtime....that is why I jumped at the chance to get away with our friends the Gleasons for a trip to the beach with her and her two kids. We made a plan to drive together and leave for the beach at 8:30AM. Amazingly, we were both ready to go and driving away at 8:30AM, anticipating a 50 min drive to Belmar. We were going along at a pretty good rate until we hit 195. Ugh. We finally got to the beach a little after 10 ish after waiting for what seemed like forever in traffic and having to endure many "are we there yet?" questions along with Kira throwing a fit for the last 15 min of our drive. I was seriously at a loss as to what to do with her. She is entering this phase of developing into her own independence but along with that comes opinions about what she does and does not want and she very clearly did NOT want to be in the car for that long and let us know.

I felt bad b/c I knew she was missing her morning nap, I knew she was tired and hungry...but watching her wave her arms and kick her legs in anger for 15 min while Charlotte's two kids just looked at her was disconcerting. Guess I really need to start listening to that CD "Loving Our Kids on Purpose" that Christy gave me a while back. Anyway, as soon as we got to the beach, she was fine...I nursed her and held her while she slept in my arms for a 20 min catnap which seemed like just enough to take the edge off because when she woke up, she was happy and ready to play!

Here she is still all sweaty from her nap in the car...

Charlotte, Meg and Reid Gleason! Reid was unhappy about something, I don't remember what, but that's why he's frowning!

This was Kira's first time in the sand since learning how to crawl...I didn't know how she would react to the feel of the sand so I just kept her on the blanket at first and let her look around at all the scantily clad people! And there were quite a few! Actually, I guess that was more me looking disbelievingly at the number of girls with measly patches of fabric barely covering their body parts...it amazes me that these small patches can be tied together and called a bathing suit! Ha! I suppose I should buy myself a bathing suit, I was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt and was very comfortable the whole time thank you very much!

I finally decided just put her down in the sand and see what she would do....and, surprise, surprise...she loved it right away! She immediately started rolling around in it, took a couple of handfuls of sand, put them in her mouth and munched away like it was the best thing she ever tasted!

Here she is looking at the ocean, she kept trying to crawl into the water...I had to keep picking her up and put her back down away from the water, otherwise I think she would have crawled right in!

Going for the mouth......

What a beautiful day it was!

There will be no stopping this girl

at the beach once she starts walking! She seems to love the beach as much as her mommy and daddy!

After spending a couple hours at the beach, we packed up our stuff and drove back. Thankfully, the drive home was traffic free and so we were home in no time! The kids were exhausted and Reid fell asleep...I kept Kira awake b/c she if she falls asleep in the car, she won't take a nap at all for the rest of the day!