One of the greatest joys of being a parent is getting to re-live your childhood vicariously through your own child. Long before Caroline was born I was already plotting which of my old stuffed animals I would pass down to her (Paula, Birdie, and Bear), all the parks and playgrounds and museums and zoos I would take her to, all the birthday slumber parties we would plan, which of my favorite kid movies I would introduce her to (imagine my sheer delight when I ran across a used copy of The Neverending Story for sale in the bookstore recently!) So I was thrilled when this past March Bill surprised me with a family summer beach trip vacation as my birthday present. The smell of saltwater! The dippin dots ice cream (ice cream of the future since 1984)! The sand in various orifices that remain hidden for weeks to come! I couldn't wait to share this rite of childhood with my baby. I was somewhat nervous that she would ingest several pounds of sand but figured hey, as long as it doesn't do any permanent damage to her intestines, it should otherwise be a pretty fun trip.
Packing for the trip, however, was nerve-wracking enough to make me want to dig a hole in the sand and climb in and cover myself up. (Death by sand holes. It's a real thing. Which, coincidentally, I discovered just a few days before our trip. Read all about it here. And now you can add 'buried alive in the sand' to your list of things to beware of at the beach. Between that and the sharks and the jellyfish and the ripcurrents, one wonders how a trip to the beach became the all-american summer pastime....) Here's a handy little summary of the packing ordeal.
days spent in packing denial: 3
days spent actually packing: 2
lists made: 6
trips up and down the 2 sets of stairs in our house, collecting needed items: 25
bags packed: 7
hours spent stuffing our car like a sausage: 0.75
To say we looked worse than the Griswolds heading to Wally World would be an understatement. Somehow I managed to stuff all of this....
into this....
With not an inch to spare. Seriously. Bill could not see out of the back window, the baby had her legs propped up on luggage, and the dog was stuck riding shotgun with a vera bradley bag. I think my mom summed it up best when she took once glance at our car and lamented, "Honey I know you want your daughter to be comfortable, but plenty of babies have survived 4 days at the beach without their bath mats." (True story. I packed her bath mat.) But come hell or high water, I was prepared to meet any vacation obstacle with the necessary gear (and the necessary margarita, courtesy of the behemoth blender that was loaded up.)
Since it was such a long drive (8 hours) from Houston to Gulf Shores, we decided to split the drive into 2 days. On Wednesday we left home bright and early at 5:00 am and arrived in Baton Rouge around 10:00, with only a few pit stops for breakfast and diaper changes. We spent the night and continued our journey the next day with my mom, making a stop in Mandeville to drop Winnie off with Bill's parents. Caroline did pretty well with the drive, despite the fact that she refused to nap in the car for more than 30 minutes. The DVD player was a huge lifesaver. She was happy to watch 'nemo' (Finding Nemo) and 'bugs' (A Bugs Life) over and over, with absolutely NO interest in the 6 other movies I had packed. I think I have the entire screenplay of Nemo safely memorized now.
At the recommendation of our friends the Geisers who were also vacationing there at the same time, we stayed at Phoenix on the Bay II. Our condo was awesome, a perfect home away from home. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, fully stocked kitchen, balcony with views of the bay and the awesome pool. We hurriedly unloaded the car (4 grocery cart trips back and forth from the car) so we could dive into the pool and see how Caroline would react. Moment of truth. Would she cry and protest like she had been doing all summer?
Luckily the pool was a huge hit in her book! It was a kid's wonderland! Lazy river with a tunnel, water slide, baby pool with spray jets, zero entry pool...she tried them all and loved every one! We spent the entire day Saturday in the pool, and she was totally happy with all of it! I had to do some cajoling to talk her daddy into letting her go down the slide on his lap, and she loved it! She wanted to go down the slide over and over again. I took her a few times and I was a kid at heart again as well, loving the thrills of the water slide all over again. I'm so glad I got to share that with her.
Even though our condo wasn't directly on the beach we made a few trips over to see Caroline's reaction to the sand and surf. At first she was a little leery of the water because the waves tended to knock her over, but as long as someone was standing there with her and could guide her and help her out she decided it was ok. And of course the sand was a huge hit, as I fully expected. Luckily she only ate a few handfuls, not a few bucketfuls like I had feared.
And she really enjoyed playing with Katy Lou and Mary Beth, the Geisers daughters who watched over her like little mother hens. Technically though their son William is much closer in age to Caroline (only 1 year older) but Caroline was entranced by the 'big girls.' So cute.
We definitely took full advantage of the fresh Gulf seafood that was readily available. Thursday night we ate at a new restaurant that was recently built out of recycled shipping containers. It had a huge outdoor deck and grass and sand areas with lounge chairs....wonderful beach ambiance. The best part of the evening was running into some of my good friends from college...talk about small world!
Friday night we had deeeelicious shrimp at the Shrimp Basket, Saturday night we boiled our own Red Royal shrimp in the condo (my absolute fave), and Sunday night we joined the entire Geiser clan at Bubba's Seafood (more Red Royal shrimp for me, although my mom had king crab legs and said those were delicious and Bill was enthusiastic about his grilled Mahi Mahi sandwich).
One of the best parts of the trip was having my mom along. She thoroughly enjoyed getting to participate in Caroline's first beach experience, Caroline was delighted to spend time with Nana, and Bill and I were able to have a little more flexibility with childcare duties. It was so nice to be able to go out to dinner alone, or hang out at the pool while Caroline was back in the condo napping, or stay up late visiting with Nick and Kelly in their condo after her bedtime. Bill was completely infatuated with the lazy river, and on our last night he convinced me to go explore the adjacent property's lazy river (which turned out to be 3x as big as ours!) It was so nice to have Nana along so he and I could have some fun time alone. I'd forgotten what that was like!!
On the way home we split the trip in half again, stopping overnight in Mandeville to visit with Bill's parents. Caroline was happy to spend a bit of time with Granny and Grandpaw. She particularly loved it when PawPaw showed her how to operate the lazy-boy's vibrating massager! All those buttons! Wohoo!
So after logging over 16 hours driving in the car (not including pit stops for lunch, the outlet mall, the produce stand, the gas stations...) we finally made it back to Houston, with the sunburns and sand in the floormats to prove it. It was a great trip but I definitely learned a good lesson about the value of packing light. Any time total strangers passing you on the interstate do a double take at the amount of luggage crammed in your car, it might be time to reconsider your packing strategy. Turns out we never even used the blasted bath mat anyway. (Although we did put the blender to good use!)
days spent in packing denial: 3
days spent actually packing: 2
lists made: 6
trips up and down the 2 sets of stairs in our house, collecting needed items: 25
bags packed: 7
hours spent stuffing our car like a sausage: 0.75
To say we looked worse than the Griswolds heading to Wally World would be an understatement. Somehow I managed to stuff all of this....
into this....
With not an inch to spare. Seriously. Bill could not see out of the back window, the baby had her legs propped up on luggage, and the dog was stuck riding shotgun with a vera bradley bag. I think my mom summed it up best when she took once glance at our car and lamented, "Honey I know you want your daughter to be comfortable, but plenty of babies have survived 4 days at the beach without their bath mats." (True story. I packed her bath mat.) But come hell or high water, I was prepared to meet any vacation obstacle with the necessary gear (and the necessary margarita, courtesy of the behemoth blender that was loaded up.)
Since it was such a long drive (8 hours) from Houston to Gulf Shores, we decided to split the drive into 2 days. On Wednesday we left home bright and early at 5:00 am and arrived in Baton Rouge around 10:00, with only a few pit stops for breakfast and diaper changes. We spent the night and continued our journey the next day with my mom, making a stop in Mandeville to drop Winnie off with Bill's parents. Caroline did pretty well with the drive, despite the fact that she refused to nap in the car for more than 30 minutes. The DVD player was a huge lifesaver. She was happy to watch 'nemo' (Finding Nemo) and 'bugs' (A Bugs Life) over and over, with absolutely NO interest in the 6 other movies I had packed. I think I have the entire screenplay of Nemo safely memorized now.
At the recommendation of our friends the Geisers who were also vacationing there at the same time, we stayed at Phoenix on the Bay II. Our condo was awesome, a perfect home away from home. 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, fully stocked kitchen, balcony with views of the bay and the awesome pool. We hurriedly unloaded the car (4 grocery cart trips back and forth from the car) so we could dive into the pool and see how Caroline would react. Moment of truth. Would she cry and protest like she had been doing all summer?
Luckily the pool was a huge hit in her book! It was a kid's wonderland! Lazy river with a tunnel, water slide, baby pool with spray jets, zero entry pool...she tried them all and loved every one! We spent the entire day Saturday in the pool, and she was totally happy with all of it! I had to do some cajoling to talk her daddy into letting her go down the slide on his lap, and she loved it! She wanted to go down the slide over and over again. I took her a few times and I was a kid at heart again as well, loving the thrills of the water slide all over again. I'm so glad I got to share that with her.
Even though our condo wasn't directly on the beach we made a few trips over to see Caroline's reaction to the sand and surf. At first she was a little leery of the water because the waves tended to knock her over, but as long as someone was standing there with her and could guide her and help her out she decided it was ok. And of course the sand was a huge hit, as I fully expected. Luckily she only ate a few handfuls, not a few bucketfuls like I had feared.
And she really enjoyed playing with Katy Lou and Mary Beth, the Geisers daughters who watched over her like little mother hens. Technically though their son William is much closer in age to Caroline (only 1 year older) but Caroline was entranced by the 'big girls.' So cute.
We definitely took full advantage of the fresh Gulf seafood that was readily available. Thursday night we ate at a new restaurant that was recently built out of recycled shipping containers. It had a huge outdoor deck and grass and sand areas with lounge chairs....wonderful beach ambiance. The best part of the evening was running into some of my good friends from college...talk about small world!
Friday night we had deeeelicious shrimp at the Shrimp Basket, Saturday night we boiled our own Red Royal shrimp in the condo (my absolute fave), and Sunday night we joined the entire Geiser clan at Bubba's Seafood (more Red Royal shrimp for me, although my mom had king crab legs and said those were delicious and Bill was enthusiastic about his grilled Mahi Mahi sandwich).
One of the best parts of the trip was having my mom along. She thoroughly enjoyed getting to participate in Caroline's first beach experience, Caroline was delighted to spend time with Nana, and Bill and I were able to have a little more flexibility with childcare duties. It was so nice to be able to go out to dinner alone, or hang out at the pool while Caroline was back in the condo napping, or stay up late visiting with Nick and Kelly in their condo after her bedtime. Bill was completely infatuated with the lazy river, and on our last night he convinced me to go explore the adjacent property's lazy river (which turned out to be 3x as big as ours!) It was so nice to have Nana along so he and I could have some fun time alone. I'd forgotten what that was like!!
On the way home we split the trip in half again, stopping overnight in Mandeville to visit with Bill's parents. Caroline was happy to spend a bit of time with Granny and Grandpaw. She particularly loved it when PawPaw showed her how to operate the lazy-boy's vibrating massager! All those buttons! Wohoo!
So after logging over 16 hours driving in the car (not including pit stops for lunch, the outlet mall, the produce stand, the gas stations...) we finally made it back to Houston, with the sunburns and sand in the floormats to prove it. It was a great trip but I definitely learned a good lesson about the value of packing light. Any time total strangers passing you on the interstate do a double take at the amount of luggage crammed in your car, it might be time to reconsider your packing strategy. Turns out we never even used the blasted bath mat anyway. (Although we did put the blender to good use!)
