Beach Blog #3

One last update as our week at the beach draws to a close...

Emma knows the importance of slathering on the sunscreen often, especially when your skin is as fair as hers.

Emma loves to jump off the steps in the pool. Here she is, mid-jump:
Alex loves playing with his basket of pool toys:

A short video of Emma "jumping" and swimming in the pool all by herself:

Lunch on Thursday at Latitude 22, at the Surfside Pier, where Emma scarfed down her "fish sticks" (grouper fingers) and "orange fries" (sweet potato fries):Doesn't take much to make Daddy happy...

The people staying in the house next door had quite a surprise when they came home from dinner on Thursday night. A big horseshoe crab had somehow found its way into their parking area!
Back to the Garden City pier for another ice cream:Swimming and jumping like a pro in the pool with Daddy today:

One last afternoon on the beach:...until the storm clouds started rolling in...One last ice cream for dessert after dinner at CreekRatz tonight:

Checking out the huge fish and the boats on the inlet after dinner:

It's been pouring rain all night -- first rain we've had since we arrived on Saturday. We sure did get some great weather all week. Tomorrow morning we start the long journey back home. Everyone cross your fingers that Emma does as well on her 2nd long car trip as she did on her first!

We had a great week. Emma loved her time at the beach and the pool, and we have promised her that we will definitely come back again soon.

Beach Blog #2

Hey, look! It's another blog from the beach! We are having a great week. Perfect weather and lots of time in the sun and water. Emma has put together an impressive collection of seashells already, and we still have two more days to add to it. She can entertain herself for hours with a bucket of water and a beach full of sand, and Mommy & Daddy are pleased as punch to be able to get in lots of beachside reading and relaxing.

Grandpa bought a kite yesterday, so he had the kids help him fly it. They had a great time taking turns holding the string.

We went out for dinner last night, and Emma didn't have a nap in the afternoon. She spent the first half of dinner passed out, mouth gaping wide open, occasionally snoring in Mommy's arms.

Proudly displaying her seashells:

Mommy is happy to be at the beach.

Happily playing in the sand:

Daddy had quite a surprise when Grandma & Grandpa's umbrella unexpectedly blew over!

Anyone who has been to Garden City, SC knows that your trip is not complete without a trip to Sam's Corner for a hot dog. We made our trip today for lunch. Emma enjoyed the hot dogs and fries, but her favorite part was drinking out of her very own Sam's Corner bottled water!

Beach Blog #1

Since we didn't post anything last week, we're hoping that giving updates from the beach this week will make up for it. Hopefully we'll post more than once while we're here!

We are spending the week in Garden City, SC at a beach house with Grandma & Grandpa K and Uncle Mike, Aunt Heather, & Alex. Our drive over was Emma's first really long car ride, and she handled it fairly well. We held out for awhile, but we finally broke down and let her watch DVDs for the last 2 hours of the trip. A preview of what car rides will be like for the next 15 years or so:

On Sunday morning, Emma went for a swim in the pool. It was the first time she's ever been comfortable in the pool without someone holding her. Guess those swimming lessons did some good!

As much as she enjoyed her dip in the pool, Emma is definitely a beach girl. She hasn't been back to the pool since Sunday morning -- she's been too busy building (and knocking down) sand castles, collecting sea shells, and standing in the waves.

The kids in their goggles:

A trip to the pier for an ice cream cone:

Dancing in the surf with Grandma

We'll be back with more updates later in the week...

Back from the Big Apple & back to the zoo

Got back from New York on Sunday night. We had a good time, but we will definitely have to go back and see all of the things we didn't get to do on our list. Since this is really Emma's blog, I won't go into too much detail. Here are a few pictures:



You can see more here. (Give it a minute or two to load.) As for Emma, she had lots of fun with Grandma & Grandpa K and Freddy. So much fun that she was too busy playing to even say hello when we called to check up on her -- guess she had a good time!

We finally got to make another trip to the zoo yesterday. Emma was so excited about going that she babbled about it non-stop for the entire drive down in the car!

She desperately wanted to have her picture taken with the lion cut-out, but she didn't quite understand the concept of putting her face in the hole!She & Cooper were sitting together for a few seconds in the big bird's nest, but I didn't have time to get my camera out before Cooper had moved on to something else.The kids discovered a photo booth while we were sitting down for a minute. I don't think they had any clue what it was for, but they enjoyed sitting inside and pulling the curtain closed to play peek-a-boo with us!

No cake without party hats!

Emma will be on her way to Grandma & Grandpa K's house this afternoon to spend a few days while Mommy & Daddy go to New York, so we figured we'd better get one more entry posted before we head out - must keep the fan club happy!

It's been a busy week, which seems to be the norm these days! We didn't make it to the zoo on Wednesday because of the rain, so we went to a nearby bouncy place with Emma's buddies Cooper & Addison instead. Poor Cooper wanted Emma to run around with him so badly. He kept pulling her hand and saying, "Emma, come!" But she spent the first hour or so frozen in terror as the other kids jumped all around her -- didn't help that it was more crowded than usual because of the weather. After watching Addison (who is not quite 1) bounce all by herself, Emma got inspired and gave it a try. Before long, she was running and bouncing all over the place! Didn't get any pictures, but I'm sure we'll be back again soon, and we promise to take lots.

On Saturday we went to a birthday party for Emma's friend Jonah, who turned 2. All morning long, all she talked about was how she was going to have cake & ice cream at the party. She kept eyeing it all afternoon, while we visited with everyone and watched Jonah open presents. When it finally came time to eat cake, suddenly a concerned look came over her face. "Mom, we can't eat cake and ice cream until we put on our party hats!" Daddy scanned the room and luckily found a stack of party hats on the counter. He put one on Emma, and she was ready to dig in!

Something really cute happened at church on Sunday. We were up at the communion rail, and Emma decided she wanted to be a big girl and walk back to our seats by herself. I spun her in the right direction and told her to follow Great Grandma. I guess she forgot about the "walk by herself" part and reached up and held on to Great Grandma's hand. The two of them walked back to their seats hand in hand, while I kept my distance behind them and watched the two Emmas together -- it was so adorable. I'm not sure who was leading who!

Now it's off to pack our things and get ready to go our separate ways for a few days. Emma can't wait to see Freddy and the waterfall at Grandma & Grandpa K's neighborhood entrance -- her two favorite things about going to G & G K's house! Meanwhile, once my work seminar is over, Daddy & I will be visiting baseball park #14, Yankee Stadium. There is one thing you can count on when we visit a baseball park: plenty of pictures!