Myrtle Beach 2013, Part 2

Of course while we were at the beach I wanted to get some good family pictures. We were mostly successful - I shot about a gabillion pictures (or 200ish) and decided that 10 were blog-worthy.  Unfortunately I didn't get the one shot that I really wanted - a great sibling picture. Man, those are hard to come by these days with my two independent-minded children!

We started out cheerful!

Then we were able to get the best sibling picture of the morning.

But this was our money shot right here!  What a great time these kiddos had with their Paw-paw and Gran/Mimi at the beach!

Like I've been saying, always happy in the arms of her grandmother!

So here's a fun little story.  Three days before we left for the beach, Sarah started crying in the other room and hobbled in to me with a bloody toe.  (I usually don't respond to a crying child in the other room unless its an obviously painful cry or it lasts at least 30 seconds, because, you know, there are kids crying all day long in this house and occasionally I'm trying to get something done!)  Unfortunately, she had somehow stubbed her toe and knocked the top of the skin off!  I calmed her down and bandaged her up, but my first attempt didn't stay on for more then 12 hours.  Thankfully, the next day Brian was home and did a better job cleaning the wound and bandaging her toe.  But we were pretty worried about how she would react to the sand that would inevitably get into her bandage during the beach trip. 

And the verdict?  She didn't fuss about her poor toe even one time.  However, whenever she wanted to remind someone about her injury, we'd have this conversation:
Sarah: "Boo-boo!"
Mommy: "You have a boo-boo on your toe?"
Sarah: "Daddy!"
And I could only guess that she was reminding me that Daddy was the one to fix her toe.   Daddy to the rescue!

Towards the end of our little photo shoot I was pretty sure I hadn't gotten a great picture of the kids together.  So I tried one more time.  "Kids, can you hold hands?  Can you smile for Mommy?  Can you look at Mommy?  Anybody listening?"  Yeah, Nathan making sad faces and Sarah completely ignoring me - that pretty much sums it up what I have to deal with around here!

But we were able to end strong with some Mommy and kiddo pictures! I LOVE this one of me and Sarah!

Then an ok one with Nathan...

... and the one with both kiddos wasn't even blog worthy.  Too bad!

There's one more thing that I need to write about - the window hide-away in the kids' bedroom.  By the way, the kids slept in the same room for 5 nights at the beach and then again for 5(?) nights the next week at Nana and Grand Dad's house.  I considered it a trial run for Boston sleeping arrangements.  Verdict?  It went surprisingly well!  The two problems were that they would wake each other up earlier then usual in the mornings and Nathan wouldn't go to sleep during naptime (which we solved after the first day by separating them at naps).   The first morning Gran just got them up when they woke around 6am (we hadn't discussed the plan and she and Pawpaw were letting me sleep in).  The next morning I heard them around 6:30, but then they got quiet again, and I assumed that one of the granparents had gotten them up.  Well, come to find out, Nathan decided he would get Sarah out of her pack-n-play by climbing up on the double bed next to it and then (couldn't get a clear answer from him on this one) he either pulled her out of the pack-n-play or he got in and boosted her up onto the bed.  Then they went and sat inside the curtain in their hide-away and looked out their window for over half an hour until Nathan's alarm clock changed color.  I was pretty surprised with their ingenuity and also that they were so entertained by looking out the window that we didn't hear a peep from them for so long!

Later in the week, all of a sudden none of us were quite sure where Nathan was (spoiler alert: in his window hideaway).  I thought I had seen him go out onto the balcony, but he wasn't there.  All the adults started calling his name and looking for him, and he wasn't anywhere to be found in the condo.  The door to the hallway was way super heavy, so we knew he couldn't have gotten out by himself.  Finally I had to gather up my courage and take a look over the balcony to see if he had fallen over our 14th floor railing.  With my heart in my throat I saw... nothing.  Then I had to look over the end of the balcony which overhung the other pool, and thanks be to God that I didn't see anything there either.  I mean, I seriously thought in my head "Please don't make me have to call Brian and tell him that his son fell over the railing at the beach and is dead."'  Finally, FINALLY he popped out from behind the curtains in his room (where we hadn't thought to look) and I don't think I've ever been so relieved in my life!  So, yeah, that kid loved his secret place and being able to watch out the window.

So other then that slightly traumatic event, the kids and I had a great time at the beach with Gran and Pawpaw!