Sunday, June 28, 2009

Vacation!!

Well, we survived our first vacation as a family of 3! It was great! Definitely much different than the vacations we used to take, but still great :) We went to Holland, MI for 3 days and 2 nights. We just wanted something relatively close by (about a 5 hour drive) and for a short time to see how Ella would do. She did great in the car. She got fussy a few times but then, so did I! :) We ended up getting to our hotel around 3:30 Thursday and went straight to the beach (about a 2 minute drive). Here's Ella, in her swimsuit cover up (modesty first!) all ready to go...(notice the lovely decor of our hotel/condo room)

And...here we are at the beach! Ella LOVED it. She really liked the sand. We ran into some problems though because she's at the stage where everything goes straight in the mouth, so who knows how much sand she ate. Also after about an hour she started getting sleepy and rubbing her eyes...not good. We didn't stay for too long that day.

Friday moring we woke up bright and early (thanks, Ella) and headed out to the boat dock for our condo just to take some pictures. There was also a cute little park and Ella went on the swing for a long time.

After Ella's nap (which didn't go well), we left to do some sight seeing. Since my Mom's from Holland, I had a list of dutch foods I wanted to bring back for us and her. We went to this place called Windmill Island. We didn't see any other tourists...we were literally the only ones there! Not really sure why! Slow day I guess?? I also realized the next day that I'd left my wallet there. Thank goodness someone had found it and turned it in! I guess I should be thankful there were no other tourists there that day...someone could've taken it!

Then on our last day there, we went to the beach again for a few hours and then headed to do more sight seeing. Here's Ella right before we had to leave the beach!

At the place we went sightseeing the 2nd day, we were about to leave and I see this guy walking really fast towards me. Then I notice he's holding my camera! I'd left it sitting on a counter in one of the stores. Sheesh! I felt like I was losing my mind! Thankfully, I think we did make it home without leaving anything important behind!
So, overall a good trip but we learned lots of things about what to do on our next trip. First of all, we need a hotel/condo with 2 seperate rooms, or at least a much bigger room if its just 1 room. We just brought Ella's pack n' play for her to sleep in. Our room was so small that we had to put it about 4 feet from our bed. Her bed time is about 7:30 so it made it pretty hard for us to watch TV or read, play cards, anything really! I'm not sure what was up with our room but there was this huge crack between the door and the frame so it let a lot of humidity in so our room just felt damp. yuck. Ella had a really hard time going down for her naps and going to sleep at night. It was just too light and too noisy for her. Today she napped about 6 hours total...she was so tired, poor girl! Also on our trip, she turned 9 months old and her front top left tooth popped through! But even through all of that, she was SUCH a happy girl. I lost count of how many people commented on what a happy and content baby she was. She is such a blessing! Even though this vacation wasn't as relaxing and carefree as our vacations were before Ella came along, I wouldn't want it any other way!

3 comments:

Marguerite said...

what great memories! one of my favorite photos of Em as a baby was taken at Lake Michigan on the beach--she is sitting in her coverup and floppy hat, sticking a beach rock into her mouth. We couldn't keep the sand or the rocks out of her hands and mouth! My sister bought a portable beach cabana when her kids were infants. It had a zippered mesh opening. If you could find one like that, it might help!

Jen said...

Amen to the two rooms. We realized that after having children who wouldn't go to sleep unless you did. You usually have to pay a little extra for the "two room suite" but totally worth it.

Lissa said...

Very cute pics of Miss Ella!