Family Vacation

A few weeks ago, we celebrated Hunter's birthday by heading to the beach for a little vacation as a family of three. We have gone to Kentucky several times since Will has joined our family, but this was the first time we had actually gone on a vacation.

We loved every minute of it, but we'll be the first to admit that a vacation with just your spouse versus a vacation with a child is SO completely different. Still wonderful, and still enjoyable, but soooo incredibly different. There was minimal time to work on my tan, and there was no such thing as staying out on the beach all day long. But regardless, it was fun, and I loved making these memories of our first family vacation!

Before loading up in the car to leave, we kicked the day off by celebrating the birthday boy!

 

 

Once we got to the beach, Mr. Will wasted no time in getting down the bare minimum required for beach attire.

I love this next picture, only because I can hear exactly what he was doing in this picture. He has started doing this thing where he sounds like he's clearing his throat and kind of yelling at the same time, and he does it constantly. He supposedly has even taught a little girl in his class how to do it. He's goes "eh eh eh eh eh." Stops, and then repeats himself. Stops, and then repeats himself. Stops, and then repeats himself, until you acknowledge him by either responding back to his call, or by speaking to him. I think someone might like attention just a little bit.

We headed down to the beach to enjoy a few hours of sunshine shortly after getting settled.

Let's talk about a few things in this picture, mainly a) that hair (finally!), b) those rolls, and c) the fact that our 7 month old knows how to whistle at the ladies on the beach. Ha! Little casanova he is.

 

Even Will knows that you can't have too many pairs of shades, especially when traveling to the beach. You can never be over prepared!

Thank goodness for the fancy beach tents and shades that they make now. We felt like this purchase was totally worth it, even if it meant we had to buy two because the first was defective, we realized after Hunter spent an hour trying to put it together on the first day.

While playing in his very own play room on the beach, we discovered that there is no reason to spend money on toys at this age. None what so ever. He discovered the empty water bottle, and thought it was the most awesome thing he had ever played with. Ever.

Seriously. He became slightly obsessed with that thing the remainder of the trip.

I couldn't wait to see what his reaction would be to the sand. Verdict: he kind of didn't know what to think.

While we were down there, we also go to enjoy some beautiful sunsets.

I had the great idea of trying to take some sweet pictures of him on the beach one evening. I was trying to time the lighting just right, but that pushed us a little too close to his bedtime, which ended in a meltdown.

But he quickly forgave us (or daddy, rather), once he was picked up and loved on.

Thus ended our wonderful beach vacation, and we packed up and headed to meet Hunter's family at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia.

Saturday morning the babies woke up to play time with their cousins. What is more fun than that? And they all learned a few things:

Will and Lily learned to share their toys (kind of),

and Caroline learned to say "Roll Tide" when she has a shaker in her hand. Repeatedly.

She also learned that not everyone in the family thinks that's as cute as the rest of us. Her daddy and her Pop Pop both graduated from Auburn. She would follow her Pop Pop around (without prompting from anyone), and say "Roll Tide! Roll Tide! Roll Tide!" Bless his sweet sole, rather than correcting her, he would just kind of ignore it. That evening, when he was at the Auburn game, she started her "Roll Tide! Roll Tide! Roll Tide!" again, and suddenly stopped and said, "Pop Pop not like that!" and started giggling. Sweet girl. Not much gets past her!

After a delicious breakfast, the babies got to go on a walk with Nonnie and Pop Pop while the rest of us got ready for the day.

First on our list of sites to enjoy was the beautiful butterfly garden.

Will wasn't so sure why he had to share a stroller with Lily.

But then he found a toy and was over it.

The butterfly garden was so neat to see. There were- get this- butterflies, everywhere.

We loved having this time to spend together, and to spend with our family. Grandmom and Grandbob even joined us!

That afternoon we headed back to our cabin, and celebrated the birthday boy a little more.

 We also had THE birthday cake, which was a treat since we weren't even at home. But somehow I managed to not get a picture of it.

Sunday came too quickly, as it always does at the end of a vacation. It was tough to get back to reality after being around some of our favorite people, and in some of our favorite places all week.

We can't to wait to have many more of these wonderful vacations in the future!