Sand and... wait, where's the sun?

Samantha’s first trip to the beach didn’t go exactly as planned....

It started first thing Monday morning.  We woke up as planned, showered, got Sam dressed and ready to go.  We’re all packed up and I reached across the seat to turn the car on while Richard locked up the house…  “click, click, click”

The car won’t start! 

After poking around for a little while, we decide to try jumping it.  Worked like a charm and we were off.  We dropped Loki off at his little puppy resort and headed to AutoZone.  Got the battery checked and it was dead.  Love those guys at AutoZone!!  They had us fixed up in, like, ten minutes.  We were finally, really, and officially on our way. 

We got to the beach around 3:30pm after a few stops to feed and/or sooth Samantha.  Richard and I unpacked the car and set up shop in our hotel.  We scarfed down a late lunch and packed up the stroller to head to the beach.  The breeze was already picking up and the beach was starting to get chilly.  Still, it was comfortable enough to take a short stroll and play in sand for a few minutes. 

Checkin' out that big blue

Such a happy girl! (And it's wind, not a mohawk...)

Got my toes in the water, toes in the sand...

I just love the look on her face!  She looks like she was jumping, lol.

The water was actually pretty decent and she got a kick out of the waves.

My beautiful little girl!!  :o)  So in love with her!!

Passed out in Daddy's arms after a fun walk on the beach.

We headed back to the hotel and Richard tested the pool water.  Too cold.  We decided to just hang out in the hotel for the remainder of the evening and we’d head to the beach again in the morning.  While Richard was flipping channels, he passed the weather channel.  Noticing some storm action, he went out to the hotels computer station to check out the forecast in more detail.  Damn, storms were rolling in.  We were looking at gale force winds, a strong rip tide, and thunderstorms.  We realized, at this point, that our beach weekend was going to end up our hotel weekend.  I was really glad that I “splurged” on the Jacuzzi tub! 

Stormy beach

Tuesday morning, after breakfast and some morning cuddle time with Sam, we got her bundled up and headed down to the beach… just to see how things were.  It was pretty breezy out, but we didn’t think much of it until we hit the top of the dune.  Wow!  Sand was blowing and biting at our ankles.  We covered up Samantha and went a smidge lower on the beach.  The waves were strong and the beach looked awesome; I wanted some pictures.  Richard and I are both into severe weather.  So, making sure the baby was safe, he and I took turns going down to the surf.  I didn’t want to keep Sam in that situation long, so we headed back to the hotel after only a few minutes.

A few minutes of pool time

Feeling like we needed to be in the water at least part of our vacation, we adjusted our packed stroller for pool versus beach time and headed out to the pool.  The sun was warm, though the breeze was cool.  Richard and I dunked our legs in the water.  It was definitely cool!  I wasn’t crazy about the idea, but we stuck Samantha in it for just a few minutes.  She seemed excited at first, but then… she too, decided it was a bit too cool for her. 

We headed back into the hotel and decided to just wait out the storms that were quickly rolling in.  No biggie!  I’d brought all of our food and we had the Jacuzzi tub and HGTV!  We’d be just fine.  We filled up the tub, slipped a Little Swimmer's diaper on Sam, and plopped her in her float.  She had a BLAST splashing around.  I, unfortunately, didn't get any pictures of that.  The wind and rain finally died down around 10pm and Richard and I discussed a late night stroll on the beach.  But, with Samantha sound asleep, it just didn't make sense to do it.  

Wednesday morning, we discussed going back to the beach after breakfast.  We had an appointment to pick up the dog at 3:00, so we really needed to be on the road by 11:30.  After getting the car packed up, we decided that it would be too much of a hassle to get down to the beach when we knew nothing about the conditions on the beach.  It was only in the 60’s, so it was really too cool to go playing in the waves.  Cleaning any sand off and repacking the car without being able to clean up was a turn off too.  So, we decided to just head home early.  Of course, we ended up stopping on the way home to feed Samantha, so we made it just in time to pick up the pup. 

Baby foot print

It was a really great weekend, even though it really didn’t turn out like we hoped.  Still, we got to have some great conversations, played with Samantha a lot, and we still got to stick some baby toes in the sand!  All in all, a successful weekend!!