Sand Between Our Toes

We headed out to Florida Saturday morning and got there Sunday early afternoon. We stopped in Seaside and met up with Amanda, Todd, and Carson, and ate some lunch. I thought I was really going to miss Seaside, but it is very crowded now. When we got to our house in Summer’s Edge (just a couple miles from Seaside) it reminded of what Seaside used to be like-just a quiet, relaxing place to be. We still miss all the fun stuff Seaside has to offer like the little stores and the amphitheater. Summer’s Edge is just a little neighborhood with a couple pools. My parent’s house was very close to the beach and ours was a little further back. Our house had a great setup and the closet was even big enough to become Ellie’s “bedroom.” She didn’t seem to mind sleeping in it. Jackson got to bunk up with the boyfriends-Zane and Jared. He was excited when they both got back to our house the first night-his roommates were home! I think he bothered them for a drink every now and then, but overall I think the set up worked well. We had wonderful weather except it rained the last day we were there. The kids had a great time. You would have thought Jackson was a totally different boy. The first day we were there, we went down to the beach in the evening and he got right in the ocean and was boogie boarding! He thought the beach was awesome and didn’t want to leave today. He was happy to hear we are going again in a few months with Andrew’s family. We even had a great surprise. Sunday afternoon, some of us were sitting on the beach when Lissy starts screaming. I thought a bee was attacking her, but I look up and see Sara, Ryan, and Bella walking over to us. They originally weren’t able to come because Ryan had a meeting. He found out Monday that his meeting was cancelled, so they decided to come. They packed up real quick that evening and left at 2:30am when Bella woke up for a feeding! When they showed up at my parent’s house, I think there were a few watery eyes in the room. I also got to spend some nice, quiet time on the beach. Andrew would take Ellie during her nap time (he likes some time to just lounge and watch tv) and I would get to go to the beach and read my book. Jackson also came with me several days, but we tried to get him to lay down a few days because he was going hard all day. So overall we had a great time-here are just a few fun memories:
-Jackson playing in the water and jumping the waves
-Ellie rolling around in the sand
-Sara, Ryan, and Bella showing up.
-Watching Andrew play with the kids
-Getting to spend real, quality time with my family
-Seeing the cousins playing together-all of them together for the first time
-Jackson performing a puppet show for us and doing an encore show with Papa
-My parent’s getting us all shirts that said, “The Circus Has Arrived. The Early Family Vacation”
-Reading on the beach
-Almost forgot this one- we ate at Texas Roadhouse on the way down and the waitresses do a line dance about every hour-well Jackson joined them. He wasn’t really line dancing, but he had some great moves. Ellie and Briley joined him too. It was great. Andy and Autumn have pictures on their camera, so I’ll post some later.

I have tons of pics from vacation so here are just a few. Also, our camera broke Thursday so I’ll have to get pics of the last couple days from others-so there will be more pictures to come.

One last note, THANK YOU MOM AND DAD for getting this all together for us. We really appreciate all your time and effort to make it a great vacation. We are definitely blessed!!!