Fernandina Beach: Monday

Our first full day!

Rhyan and Mack both did great sleeping in their new places! Rhyan really did well in her closet bed :-)

However, she does tend to wake early. Normally, at home, she just lays in her bed until we come get her up. But this morning, we woke to a little voice saying "its still dark outside. we need a close our eyes and go back to sleep. right daddy?" (her daddy is asleep).

She kept on until, for the first time EVER, her daddy invited her to get up in bed with us, hoping for another 30-45 min of quiet.

Bad move.

We ended up getting petted by her, inspected by her, kissed, hugged, told to hold her monkey, covered up, uncovered.... well, you get the point. She was awake and ready to go for the day. haha.

Mack slept in till almost 8am. I should have known that wasnt a good sign.

He woke up feeling HOT. His temp was 101.5 :-( And he looked pitiful. But he was acting ok. Not great. Kind of whiny. But then, he's always kind of whiny! So, i put in a call to PAL and the nurse said that if he wasnt showing symptoms of an ear ache or throat hurting, etc, to assume its a virus and try to just keep him cool. So, even though she said we didnt need to treat a fever unless it was above 102, we went ahead and gave him some motrin in case his teeth were hurting (his molars are on their way). She also said, btw, that fevers UP TO but not above 100.5 are associated with teething, but anything past that is usually a virus. So we went with it.

We had a yummy breakfast and he ate great. Then, we loaded up and headed to the BEACH!

Jeff and I bought a 10x10 tent before the trip and were excited to use it.... we loaded up all our stuff and headed out. Its just a short walk across the street to the beach. We got all set up and headed out to enjoy the ocean!

Rhyan loved it! She was definitely feeling dramatic and had her moments but for the most part, she just loved being in the ocean, being held by her daddy or myself and jumping waves. Of course, you would have thought that we were trying to kill her when we'd ask her to stand up on her own (girlfriend wore us out!). "noooo! i skaaaareeeeed!" she'd scream. Nice.

Mack was unsure. But then, he kind of was hating life a little at that point (getting grumpy). He kind of liked it?! But then would also cry a little at times. We just tried to make it fun for him and he seemed ok.

I was thinking before our trip that he was ready to drop his morning nap.... so my plan was to avoid morning naps. Not smart considering the fact that the sun and water wears you OUT! So, Ronni held him for a few minutes while Jeff, Rhyan and I played in the water a few more minutes and in no time Mack was out like a light :-)

And when he woke up, omg. He was miserable. At that point, i felt sure he had an ear infection. He wouldnt eat anything i had to offer him or drink anything. I told everyone else I was going to take Mack back to the room and find an urgent care place. By the time we got back to the room, though, he was acting much better. So i decided to keep an eye on him and just wait. The urgent care place was open till 8pm so i felt ok about that.

We ate some lunch and put the kids down for a nap. We just let Rhyan sleep on our bed... i was feeling badly about her closet bed :-) While they napped, Jeff and I hit up the local OLD SCHOOL Wal-Mart. Youknow, the old kind that doesnt  say "Super" in front of the name!? It was awesome.

They both slept hard and for a long time! And when Mack woke up, he was ok. Temp was around 100 but he was acting normally! When Rhyan woke up, she said "the bed is wet". Yeah. I forgot to have her go potty before her nap. Oops! And Eww.

We all got dressed and ended up dining seaside at Sandy Bottoms. There was a nice breeze and it was so nice to sit by the beach and listen to the waves crash in while we ate. Mack and Rhyan both did pretty well at dinner! I had grilled scollops. YUM.

 There was a playground area next door (there are a LOT of these on the island randomly! Which is GREAT!) that Jeff and the kids took advantage of while we waited and paid. OH, and side note: Rhyan told me she needed to go potty but i was wanting to take a few quick pics of Mack on the playground. Well, then she started tippy-toe jumping around.... so i ran her to the potty (which was NASTY!) and poor girl almost didnt make it! Whew. Lesson learned on my part. (I'm really an awesome mom in the potty department, huh?! lol)

 See if you catch a theme with Mack at the playground in these pics...

 We headed on back to the condo and put Mack to bed while the rest of us (minus rhyan) enjoyed a coke float. Man, that thing was GOOD! Rhyan said "i not like coke! i want chocolate". Girl knows what she likes :-) Then she headed to her new bed... a palate in Gran and Grandads closet. LOL. It had more space and a door so she could have some privacy. haha.

 We finished off the night by taking a few pictures out on the balcony. The sunset was so beautiful. You can see in these pics how far/close we were to the beach. It was literally across the street (past our entrance which is where that small pond is behind us). The homes there are so eclectic. Some are new. Some are old.

 OH. MY. PRECIOUS!

 Jeff and I took one last little trip to the pool and enjoyed the hot tub for a little bit before calling it a night.

2 days down, 5 to go. I dont want it to end!!!

Fernanindina Beach 2012: Sunday

The journey to the beach began by packing up 87% of our current belongings into the van, including our bikes hanging off the back. Oh yeah, plus the kids ;-) We (aka: I) had a goal of leaving by 8am. We pulled out of the driveway around 8:20. Not ideal, but not bad considering, i guess.

I had warmed up 3 sausage/egg/cheese biscuits for breakfast and took them with us for the ride. Mack and Rhyan each ate around 1/2 of one and it seemed to tide them both over for quite a while! We listened to music and chatted and tried to put off stopping for as long as possible. We made it to the $1 petting zoo/gas station. It was 11:30, i think! Our plan was to stop there for a quick reprieve and then make it a little farther for lunch.

 Let me go ahead and caption this for you: "Mackie, i gonna give you some bread for the ducks, okay? Dont eat it, okay?!"

 "Now, mack, dont eat it, member?"

 "MACKIE!!! I said dont eat it! I not gonna give you any more!"

 She ran the poor baby goat back under the fence!!! lol

 Jeff and I wanted to feed the Emu, but we were scared it would bite us...

 So we threw the bread instead! HA!

 Turtle!!!

 The duck stamp we all got for paying our dollar :-)

 Mack's face pretty much sums up his attitude. Poor baby was teething. Sadly, he's not a great teether.

We made it about another hour and stopped at THE busiest cracker barrell i've ever seen! I knew we'd hit the "after church crowd"... well, Jeff said "we're in a college town (statesboro) ... people here dont go to church" (jokingly, of course). To which i replied (right as we saw the parking lot), "well, they may not go to church, but they sure do eat!".  Luckily, the wait was only 20 min so we were happy to wait. OH yeah.... and there came a torrential downpour right after i ran in to check the wait while the kids stayed in the car with jeff. So he used that 20 min wait time to try to wait out the rain... :-)

After lunch, we *hoped the kids would sleep a little while as we finished out the drive. Mack had taken two short (30 min or so) naps so far and we hoped he would take one more. And Rhyan, our typical 3 hour nap a day girl, had yet to shut her eyes!

Mack slept about 15 minutes, but unfortunately, Rhyan continued in her trend and stayed awake the whole way. But really, she did fine! She was a little whiny at times, but hello, the tv helps tremendously with that.

*side note: i get comments from patients/family/friends all the time about "idk what we did when we were kids and didnt have a tv to watch on a trip. its a wonder we didnt just die!". Ok, peeps, nor were you confined in a 5 point harness car seat, unable to move more than an inch or so. So yeah, my kids watch tv. :-) Rant over.

We arrived at our condo in Amelia Island around 4:30pm and proceeded to get unpacked.

While mack proceeded to cry. Nonstop.

I think he was just "done". He had also had a ROUGH night sat night... he cried out 3-4 times and got his leg stuck between the crib and mattress for over an hour before i realized it. Oops. So i KNOW he was worn out.

We wanted to let the kids experience some water and while Rhyan was insisting on going to the beach, we opted for the closer pool. It was close to dinner time and i knew the kids would need to go to bed early...

I had bought Rhyan a "puddle jumpers" life vest. She was NOT a fan at first, but like a good mom (haha) i made her wear it anyways. And guess what? She LOVED it!!! She was almost immediately paddling around on her own! And jumping in the pool by herself! I was SO proud of her!!

And i also bought a lifevest for mack... who hated it. But then, he hated life at that moment, so i took it in stride. One lady said "i dont envy those days... but then, my teens are pretty high maintenance, too" . HA!

We headed on back from the pool, grabbed some dinner here in the condo (just stuff we brought) and got the kids in BED.

Which, for Rhyan, was a palate in the floor of our closet. LOL.

What Tracy says is true, that girl will sleep ANYWHERE!!! :-)

Ronni and Andy got here around 9:30 (they had a funeral visitation for Ronni's uncle to attend before heading this way). We all settled in and are ready for a week of FUN! (lets hope!)

We're excited to be here!