BEACH!!!

We got home on Wednesday from a fun beach trip. :-) I read a blog a couple of weeks before we left about a family with 3 year old twins and then an older son that had been to the beach. The writer made sure to clarify that it was a trip to the beach... not a beach vacation. When you have two toddlers, there isn't much vacationing involved. But, that doesn't mean we didn't have fun! One of Phil's long time friends from high school, college, and beyond let us use their condo at the beach, so it was so fun to stay in a place that was familiar and had everything that we needed. There was plenty of room for the kids, and since this family has little ones as well, they even had a toddler rail on one of the beds! Perfect!

The trip down to Florida was INTERESTING! We are about 4 hours from the beach, so I was not happy that it took us 6 hours to get there. The traffic was horrendous, and little towns named Florala, Luverne, and Paxton just aren't meant to accommodate that type of traffic. To top it all off, it was raining and raining... and hey, how about some more rain?!?! I had a not so good feeling and outlook about this trip. I was grumpy, we were all hungry, and there was no where to stop for food. Every gas station we stopped in had a place for only ONE person to go at a time, so we waited and waited and waited some more. Because guess what? The newly potty-trained twins have to stop to go the restroom. Oh, my sweet word, would we ever get there?
But, guess what? WE DID!! It continued to rain for the rest of that night, and I made the mistake of trying to buy groceries at the Publix near our condo. I have never seen anything quite like it. There were lines in the aisles. You couldn't push your cart freely up and down, you just had to wait your turn to pass what you needed. Then, we had to form the checkout line down one of the aisles in the grocery store, and three managers directed people into the proper checkout lane. It was madness! P.S. I don't like crowds or lines. I made it, though! Groceries purchased and loaded into the car on the rainiest day of the year in the whole southeastern U.S.

The next morning, it was... raining! Haha! I can laugh because things did get better. We were finally able to go down to the beach later that morning. It rained on us some, but we were determined to stick it out because it ain't easy to get a family of four down to the beach. So we planted ourselves in our chairs, threw out the beach toys, and the kids went to town! They don't need sunny weather, so I decided to adopt their philosophy and just go with it. We built sand castles, played in the sand, and let the ocean waves lap over our feet.

A few pictures from the first day...






The kids and I loved having breakfast and lunch on the balcony each day.


The other two days we were there were simply beautiful! The weather was perfect, and we spent our mornings until lunch time out on the beach with a quick dip in the pool before we headed upstairs for nap. To say that Rush loved the beach would be an understatement. Gigi suggested we take a big Tonka truck that was donated to us by our cousin, Trey, for Rush to play with. It was a fantastic idea! It was big, but he had a ball playing with it. He was so excited to have his "dunk trunk" there. He literally played in the sand the entire time he was on the beach. Frannie liked the beach, but she was not as interested in playing in the sand. On the last day, she and I spent a lot of time in the water because the seaweed had cleared enough to let us enjoy the water. She really liked the ocean!












We also enjoyed some fun dinners out each night. (I am all about the food!)There was one small incident involving a dress that I thought was precious... Frannie, not so much! It made her face look like this...

And then this...


I think she likes symmetry in a dress because the problem seemed to be that it tied on one shoulder. It was quite a show! She did wear the dress, but it took a while to move past it. I feel slightly nervous that we already have clothes drama. It is the classic tale... Mama vs. Daughter in the clothes department. Pray for us.

Finally, on the last night, we took the kids to the circus! Ok.. so it wasn't really a circus, but we drove by it the first night when we were out exploring on our first night. Fran didn't stop talking about the sur-kiss for the rest of the trip. She really wanted to go, so we gave in and had dinner at Pier Park and then on to the sur-kiss. It was really just a place with some rides for kids. Unfortunately (for me), our kids were not tall enough to ride anything by themselves. So, Phil and I had to ride all of the rides with them. :-) They were making a very large profit from their rides, so we only rode two things. That was all I could handle anyway because kids' rides do one thing. Go around in circles. Not really that much fun when you have a tummy full of grilled fish tacos. I was a little nauseated, but we pulled through. The kids LOVED it!! Thrilled is a better way to describe it! The smiles were worth it!!






Overall, it was a really fun trip! We have decided, though, that we are October beach people. The weather is still beautiful, the water is usually clear, and the crowds are gone. I think that sounds like a great excuse to go again in a couple of months, don't you? :-)

Long lost photos

Beginning immediately after my twins were born and for the next three days or so while I stayed in our local hospital and they were transferred to the NICU in another city, my memories are very hazy. There were many things that happened that I was not aware of, and quite honestly, Phil was doing the parent thing "solo". He went back and forth to Montgomery to see them and get daily updates. Then, he would come back to my hospital to bring me pictures and visit with me. Before the pediatrician made the decision to transfer them to a higher level NICU, they were in our hospital's special care nursery for a while. Recently, Phillip, Phil's dad, aka Granddaddy, used a camera he had not used in a long time. And guess what he found when he turned the camera on? Pictures from the day the twins were born. When he told me this, my heart started beating so fast. More details for me about that day they were born... what the feelings of other people were, how they looked in those first hours... All of these things have been told to me through our family's memories, but I just didn't see it for myself. I didn't get those first pictures of everyone holding the babies in my hospital room or feeding them for the first time. We got all of that later but just not in those early days. When I look back on it, would I have changed it? Yes, yes I would. A lot of times people say they wouldn't change things when they look back. But, if I could have had healthy babies with me right then. Then, I would have chosen that. If I could have held them the day they were born, I would change that. But, that was not in the plan. So, since it was not, I cling to pictures like these... taken through a glass window, to see what those days were like from someone else's perspective. And now, it still so difficult to comprehend that these little oxygen-tented babies are the almost-three year olds that just asked me for more milk in their cups. Amazing!!




I'm pretty sure the next two are of Frannie.



I think this one is Rush because of the way his little legs are folded up. I remember seeing the pictures of his legs like this and thinking something would be wrong with his legs. I think Frannie just sat on him for so long, he didn't have any other choice. :-)

Lazy Lake Days and Fireworks

We spent part of the weekend of the 4th at my grandparents' lake house. The kids had a great time and spent a little bit of time in the water. Frannie was more of a fan of the lake than Rush. He said, "Dat water muddy." They did get some mud stirred up in the shallow end, so I guess he didn't care for that. :-) Rush was a fan of the sprinkler that Gigi bought for them to play in. It happened to spray in exactly the right way so it would send his beach ball flying into the air. Pure fun! He loved that! We spent the morning outside and then headed inside where my children proceeded to nap for a little over 3 hours. They haven't done that all summer! Nothing like some good 'ole lake fun to wear you out. The room where they were napping was the PERFECT place for a nap. There was a window unit air conditioner going with a big mattress pallet in the floor for them with clean, fresh pillows and nice worn in beach towel to use as their blankets. I really kind of wanted to curl up myself. The hum of the air conditioner, a cool room, with blankets... not a bad deal at all! Thunder rumbled all afternoon, so we stayed inside after their nap before heading home in the late afternoon. We have plans to go back later in the summer for some family time where we all spend the night. FUN!!










After we went to see Cars 2, we went to our town's fireworks display and had a picnic supper... although we didn't each much of it since we were all full of popcorn. The kids liked the fireworks this year (as opposed to being petrified last year). Phil even found a shortcut to get us out of the horrendous traffic really quickly! It was a good night. The kids were troopers... even with their after 10 pm bedtime that night. So, they slept really late the next morning..... HahahahahahahahaMwahhhahahahahahhaha! {That is their maniacal, joker laugh, by the way.} They did NOT sleep late. 5:52 am. Just like clockwork. It was still a good night, though! :-)

First movie

We have had a whirlwind weekend, full of lots of fun! I will have another post soon on our fun times at the lake, but I accidentally left my camera there, so I had to use my backup camera yesterday. I will probably combine those with our fun at the fireworks.

Yesterday, Gram and Granddaddy took us all to see Cars 2. This was the first time the twins had been to a movie, and it went exactly as I predicted. Rush sat mesmerized and watched the entire movie from the previews through the credits. He is a movie-watcher. Frannie watched the movie and smiled huge grins at me until her popcorn was gone and then she bounced from lap to lap. Since Gram and Granddaddy were there, she had some extra laps to sit in. I did not think she would be able to sit through the entire film, but overall it was OK.


Outside the theater


Inside the theater by the movie posters.. the is the only one where Rush wasn't turned around staring at the posters

Like this...






The popcorn was a HUGE hit! I took some smaller bags to put pocorn in so they could each have their own bag. They sure seemed to know what to do with the big bag, though. I am not sure how long the sharing of the large bag would have lasted,though. {By the way, the popcorn in the picture is a MEDIUM. We only ate about half of it with three of us sharing it!!!}



Rush finished the afternoon by dancing in the aisles as the credits rolled. A very appropriate way to conclude his first movie-going experience, I think!


**Disclaimer** Before you take your little one to see Cars 2, you might want to check out the following website to get more information on the content. www.kidsinmind.com The story line was above the head's of my two little ones, although Rush was excited to see his favorite characters. It did have some violence and other questionable content that led me to feel it probably should have been rated PG.