After an accidental hiatus, I’m finally catching you up with all of our summer fun. It’s hard to believe it’s been two whole months since our family vacation. We joke that we spend fifty weeks a year looking forward to this trip, but it’s more true than you know. This summer was especially fun, because we were introducing Polly to all of our favorite places and teaching her how to be the best beach bum she could be.
I’m not even going to try and recap all of the things we did each day. Instead, I’m going to share all of my favorite photographs — way too many — and share a few of my favorite moments from our trip.
Polly still wasn’t sleeping great when we visited Gulf Shores in June. We were closing in on sleeping through the night, but she was still nursing several times on her worst nights. Naps were improving, but we weren’t on a specific schedule and I had no idea how that might work with long beach days. Much to my delight, she slept wherever we were when she got sleepy. Sometimes that might only be a thirty minute power nap, but there were many times she slept for several hours. I was honestly surprised at how much rest we got in between our explorations!
We didn’t venture onto the beach until several days after our arrival. Because we’re there for two whole weeks, there isn’t as much pressure to cram it all in, and since Josh works a few days each week, we decided to wait until he could help carry our load.
This girl loved the ocean. She happily played in the sand, she was not at all intimidated by the water, and we all enjoyed plenty of people watching during our stay.
We even packed a small plastic pool so that we could more easily corral her in one spot. Some days we filled it with water and toys and other days we left it empty or let her play in a much smaller area of sand.
These three girls were a huge help our entire trip. They carried things, changed diapers, pacified the baby — pretty much anything I asked for, they delivered.
We use a laundry basket to haul our beach toys too and from the beach and, even though this seems excessive, it was kind of a lifesaver. I can’t tell you how many times we put Polly inside the basket with her toys. She could almost get herself out, but the taller sides helped us keep her contained for a few minutes at a time.
Another beach day, another darling bathing suit! After an unfortunate blister on her face — despite copious amounts of sunscreen — Josh sent me to Target for a rash guard. Neither of our big girls ever wore these, so I had no idea how light and easy to wear they were, but she pretty much lived in long sleeves for the rest of our trip.
I tried so many times to get great pictures of her in the sand, but she was always on the go.
They almost always turned out like this one below!
