Vacation!

We've been back about a month now from our fabulous relaxing vacation. We went to Jekyll Island this year, with almost the entire family on my side. Mom and Dad rented a house on the beach for us all to enjoy. My sister Laura and her fiancee even got to fly down! My sister Pia and her family came, as well as Jennifer and Chaz.

Our vacation started on Friday, Sept 4. Laura and Ben's plane landed around 10:30 Friday night. We went to pick them up and headed for the beach! We didn't think we'd make it all the way but we wanted to at least get to Savannah. We thought it would be best if we drove at night so Logan would sleep on the way. That may have been our biggest mistake of the trip, haha. He slept good until the airport. He work up as we were loading luggage in the back of the car. Laura and I rode in the back with him. He was mesmerized by Laura. He hasn't seen her since he was 5 months old so he didn't know who this strange person was in the backseat touching him and talking to him. It took him what seemed like a couple hours to go back to sleep after that. He woke up at every stop, bless his heart. I guess he couldn't sleep through the car doors shutting or something. We made it to Richmond Hill, which is just south of Savannah and found a hotel. We got lucky and found a room for only $40, plus $10 for the dog. Oh yeah, Nino went with us too. Our room seemed clean, but apparently Laura and Ben had roaches in theirs, HAHA! I think there may have been mold or something because Brent and Logan kept having coughing spells. Logan was once again mesmerized by his new surroundings and was too excited to go to sleep. We finally get him to sleep and Brent would have a coughing fit and it would wake him up. Finally around 5:00 a.m. we all get some sleep. Logan gets up at 7, like normal. I thought since he didn't sleep much he might sleep later but apparently he is a creature of habit and did not want to break his routine. We decided to get breakfast at the Denny's adjacent to the hotel while we waited on Laura and Ben to get up. Then we headed for Jekyll, which was another 1.5 hours away. We finally made it to Jekyll after getting turned around and stopping for groceries. We all got changed and lotioned up and went down to the beach. Brent and Ben went down to a sports bar that was playing the UGA game, silly boys. Laura helped me get Logan ready for the beach while I was changing into my swimsuit. I handed her the sunscreen and she put it one him. I forgot completely that it bothers his eyes and of course she didn't know, so his eyes were all red and puffy from it. I was using Banana Boat Baby which says clearly on the bottle that it's "no tears", but apprently he doesn't take well to it. Poor Brent and Ben had to end up coming home early from the game because Logan was fussy and wouldn't take a nap in this not so usual place. I ended up having to take him for a car ride. Once he was asleep, I drove to the public beach, laid down the seat and took a long nap myself. The two hours sleep the night before was not doing me any good! He ended up adjusting and sleeping better the rest of the week. Logan did not like the water the first day. He did like feeling the sand though. Our umbrellas were useless in the wind, so Brent and I had to go buy a tent/canopy thing for the rest of the week. We ended up having to tie gallon water jugs to the stings and burying them in the sand to keep the thing upright. Monday night we had a little engagement party/cookout for Laura and Ben and had a little whiffle ball game while the food cooked.

The second day the guys went and played golf while us girls sat out at the beach. I bought Logan new sunscreen, Waterbabies, and it didn't hurt his eyes. But, with me trying to be careful to not get it in his eyes I missed a spot under his eye and it got burnt pretty bad. I put sunscreen on him probably 6 times and of course I missed that one spot each time. He loved the water the second day though. He would even crawl out to it and try to crawl way too deep. He was being too much of a dare devil! He'd crawl out, then see a wave coming and sit up so he could splash in the water while it was deep. He also like chasing after seagulls and the bubbles in the really shallow end of the surf. He was really good out on the beach. He didn't eat sand, well not intentionally anyways. He didn't seem to mind the wet sand on his arms and legs either. That evening we thought we had reservations on the casino boat. Turns out I was wrong because they don't sail on Sunday nights, so Laura, Ben, Brent and I went to St. Simons to eat dinner since we already had a sitter (aka MawMaw) watching Logan.

The third day, Monday, we decided to go to the outlet malls to could keep Logan out of the sun. His little burn under his eye was a little blistered and I didn't want it to get worse. I know how bad sunburns hurt especially when more hot sun hits them and I didn't want him to be uncomfortable. We found a couple good deals at the outlets, nothing special though. That evening Mom watched Logan again so we could finally get to go out on the casino boat. That was lots of fun and the sunset off the back of the boat was gorgeous.

Tuesday we spent more time at the beach. This was the first time Brent got to see Logan play in the water and sand.

Wednesday we ended up staying out of the sun again. I was burnt this time. We went to the Sea Turtle Center, which is where they rehab sick turtles so they can release them again. It was neat to see them working on the turtles and see them that up close. There was a little book with the name of the turtle, what was wrong with it, etc, at each pool. That evening we had to take Laura and Ben to the airport in Jacksonville. Mom ended up keeping Logan for us. We dropped them off and then went over to St. Augustine. I've been there before but Brent's never been there so I wanted him to see it in hopes he would be interested in vacationing there sometime. We walked around the city and went into little souviner shops. Then we stopped to eat at Harrys. I knew about Harry's from the last time I was there. My friends and I asked everyone where we should eat on my first trip there and everyone said Harrys. I remembered exactly where it was and we seriously had the best seafood we've ever put in our mouth. It was wonderful! I tried to talk Brent into doing a ghost tour, but he was too chicken. You would think it'd be the other way around, but nope, it wasn't!

Thursday we ate with Mom and Dad at a yummy seafood buffet. Friday we spent the day packing and driving home.

It was a great vacation and I'm so glad Logan loved the beach and water sooo much! Can't wait to take him back!

Where has this year gone??

Logan will be 11 months tomorrow! That's not cool, not cool at all! He's getting to be such a big boy. He will now walk behind his walker and his little push toys with ease. He will occasionally let go and stand up on his own. He is really into things with wheels and anything shaped like a ball. He has this little fire engire that he scoots around everywhere and has recently been putting it under his belly and crawling with it under him for some reason. It keeps him occupied at least. He's been playing kissy games with us. When I'm rocking him for nap or bed, I'll kiss his forehead and then he'll raise his head back up so I'll kiss him again. He'll do this over and over! Sometimes he'll grab my chin and pull it down too. He's so funny!

Brent has been teaching him to throw a ball. The other day, Brent had just got home from work and sat down in the floor to play with Logan. Logan went and got his ball and started throwing it at Brent. That's their thing. It was so sweet to see him find a ball just so he could play ball with daddy. Brent's hoping he's going to be a little athlete like he was.

It seems as though Logan prefers his left hand. If he's sitting between us at dinner, he grabs at the person's food on his left. He picks up his food with his left hand and throws with his left most of the time. He does occasionally go with the right, but it's mostly been the left.

He has officially learned how to climb up the couch. His legs are so long he can throw his knee up to get enough leverage to get his whole body up. Speaking of his long legs. I think I'm going to have a hard time this winter finding pants to fit him. I've put pants on him a couple times during this rainy weather we've had the past couple days and 12 mos pants are almost too short but way to big in the waist. It's like he needs 6 mos in the waist and 18 mos in length. I don't think they make any specialty pants like that, so I guess I'm going to just have to deal with it. Maybe take them up myself.

He got his first pair of big boy walking shoes the other day. Actually, he got two pairs. Good shoes is one thing I refuse to skimp on for him. I'll buy used clothes and second hand toys, but I will not buy the kid crappy shoes. We went to Stride Rite and found what we needed. They were way expensive there ($50 a pair) so we went to JCPenney and found the same shoes for almost half, plus they were having "Buy One, Get One 1/2 off. So he got the Stride Rites that he needed and a pair of New Balances that seemed just as flexible as the Stride Rites. There are lots of guidelines that you are suppose to follow for shoes when they are learning to walk. They aren't suppose to have thick soles, no hightops, must be really flexible, should be a soft leather, etc, etc. After he's walking good, shoes won't be so difficult to find!

His birthday is fast approaching. Everyone will get an invite in the mail, but if anyone needs to plan ahead it's going to be Sunday Oct 18 at 2 at the Helicopter Park in Chickamauga (across from the GL softball and baseball fields). We'll have pizza or hotdogs/burgers and cake of course. I was going to make a slide show of his first year but with it being outside I'll probably just print them out and have them in an album for anyone to look at if they choose. I'm going to do one of those shutterfly albums of his first year for Christmas so I can get his first b-day pics in it. I'm not sure what we're going to get him for his birthday but we've talked about getting one of those plastic playground things that are made for little people. He started stacking stuff the other day, so blocks might be an option as well.

Ok. I'm going to write about vacation and post some pics in a bit. Right now he's hungry!