Thunderstorms

It is rainy season in Florida so I guess the thunderstorms are to be expected. This is what the sky looked like for a fair portion of yesterday (and seems this morning too!) Didn't bother Raleigh one bit, she still wanted to go to the beach. We did let her, but when it started thundering and lightening, we headed in.
While Raleigh swam quickly in the pool, Aiden slept. So cute!
We came in, changed our clothes and headed away from the rain....to John's Pass. We had a nice lunch and bought Raleigh a couple little things (oh how she loves her surprises! Grammy dosen't mind buying them either!) We had ice cream too!

Guess someone caught a shark....what a wierd sight this was out on the boardwalk.
I guess it's a good thing we don't live on the beach. Apparently the pressure to keep up a good beach worthy body is even affecting the birds. They have made a switch to calorie free sweetner - and don't they look so svelt? Good choice birds, good choice.
Today, since it is raining, we are heading off somewhere to do some shopping. Hopefully this afternoon the weather will be a little clearer and Raleigh can hit the beach again!

Beach Update Tuesday...

More fun today! Raleigh swam like a fish for most of the day. We are teaching her how to be a bathing beauty as you can see! Little man Aiden went in the pool too. He kicked his feet and seemed to enjoy it. After he took a nice snooze in the shade. What a life, right??

Beachin it!

We've been taking Raleigh out each night to collect sea shells. The weather is really nice in the evenings and no risk of sunburn. Raleigh of course thinks every seashell is BEAUTIFUL even the broken ones. We have a whole bag of her treasures collected so far. We discovered these little "baby clams" that burrow down into the sand when the waves come in. Raleigh thought those were wonderful. She exclaimed "I LUUUUV BABY CLAMS!" SOOOOO cute.
Here we are under our "tent"....Raleigh giving kisses.
And of course we tried, yet again, to get a cute pic of the two of them. Let me tell you I have at least 40 pictures of the two of them.

First Day of our Beach Vacation

This is a view down the beach and then from the ocean looking back at the condos. This was our little "beach camp" from yesterday - although we kept it up all day long we never went back after lunch. Raleigh just wanted to swim in the pool.

Raleigh LOVES the sand. We knew she would since she is CRAZY about her sandbox at home. She definately does not get that from me. I really dont like getting sand on the blanket and seriously don't like getting it on me. I had to resign myself to the fact that with two kids, sand will be everywhere!! Raleigh was laying in the sand making "sand angels (I think she saw someone on TV making snow angels - hey, this is a heck of a lot warmer so we'll take it!) And she even decided to stick her face in the sand. Silly girl!

Aiden stayed in the shade. He seemed to enjoy the fresh air and roar of the ocean. So much so that he actually fell asleep out on the blanket under the umbrella. It was SOOOOO cute! This was the best I could do at getting the two of them in one picture. They are both such wiggle worms. Raleigh is the speck off to the right with the white hat on.
Daddy took Raleigh in the ocean. Not her first time, but probably the first time she can remember. She didn't like the waves AT ALL. He finally had to carry her in. And, as you can see in the last photo, she came tearing out trying to beat the waves from getting to her feet!

Raleigh officially has a tan now. HA! She didn't get burned at all (yay for SPF 50!) But you can see where her swimsuit was.... what a little beach bum.

Speaking of Raleigh- I think it is time for everyone else to get up. They bought a new tent for the beach today, and we need to go stake claim on our little plot. Interestingly enough the people who left their beach tents and chairs folded up on the beach got TICKETS from the beach police this morning (I saw him writing them). I had no idea there were even law enforcement units on the beach. I guess there is crime everywhere, right?

OK, time to go wake up little miss princess.

At the Beach

We arrived last night at Indian Rocks beach where my parents have rented a condo for the week. Raleigh has been absolutely excited and dying to get here since sometime last week when we started preparing her that we were coming. She has gotten her beach toys out every day and tried to "get going" with them only to hear us tell her she had to wait. As you can imagine, when we arrived she wanted nothing to do with eating dinner - so that was a MAJOR chore - but she just loved getting to the beach. She collected a whole bucket full of shells for her sandbox at home (with grammy, grandpa, daddy, and mommy's help of course). She is quite the shell inspector - looking for "daddy and mommy shells" and "little tiny baby shells." Too funny.
Aiden has bee an angel, of course. He did sneeze a big mouthful of green beans on me earlier - but that's another story!


We'll update more tonight with some pictures of Raleigh in the ocean! She was scared, but enjoyed it eventually.

Afternoon at the Beach

This is the view down Clearwater Beach this afternoon.
(Sheri please note nobody here is wearing a burly winter coat! LOL It was 86 degrees - a whole 82 degrees warmer than your beach trip. Kinda crazy!)

We tried to go to the beach yesterday. That really didn't go well. Raleigh was whining in the car, aiden was screaming and Chris had JUST said "In two minutes I am going to turn this van around because everyone is miserable!" Does that sound like a 'DAD' thing to say or what? He was of course kidding. I was chatting about how we needed to look into getting AAA since our other car just went out of warranty and therefore no roadside assistance for free anymore. Chris agreed. We got on the expressway to head to the beach. The warning light for the tires dinged a couple times. We don't really think much of this since the sensor goes off if one tire gets even a tiny bit less air than the others. Suddenly I hear this loud repetetive noise. At the same time Raleigh, who was wearing her big girl panties, says "Mommy I have to go potty!"Chris thinks it is a truck passing us but I knew it was a flat tire. I told him to pull over. Sure enough he came back to report that the rear passenger tire was completely flat.

Now, at this point I am thinking "Thank goodness it happened in the van!" This car is still only a year old and has the roadside assistance that Chrysler promised was included when we leased this van from them. Chris calls the roadside assistance number. They don't cover flat tires, only mechanical problems. FANTASTIC (note sarcasm here). We then discovered that the spare tire was very complicated to get out from under the front end of the van. And, it could only be pulled out on the side with all the traffic whizzing by. Inside the car, Aiden was screaming and fussing and Raleigh is crying because she has to go potty and won't go in her pants because we told her if she went in her pants we wouldn't go to the beach. In the end, Chris got the spare put on and we took the van to get the tire fixed.

Raleigh had a great day using the potty yesterday. She didn't have any accidents despite the obvious trauma of the whole van break down. We promised her we would go to the beach today.

When we arrived at the beach, since it is Spring Break, there was no parking! We wound up paying $10 to park a zillion miles from the beach and walked the whole way with all our stuff. We had originally intended on having a picnic on the beach, but we had to eat our lunch in the back of the van before we headed off to the beach. Raleigh thought this was hilarious of course.

Eventually we did make it to the beach...

Raleigh looking for seashells (for our sandbox at home)

Bringing the seashells back in her pail and then surveying her finds with Daddy!Aiden at his lunch on the beach! Nothing like beachfront dining!

Raleigh absolutely hated the showers, but we had to rinse the sand off. She was screaming and throwing a huge fit the entire time. I swear, I used to be on the other side of this whole parent thing thinking "Oh my what is wrong with that kid? Why don't their parents do something?" I now realize there is absolutely nothing you can do. When your two and a half year old wants to scream about the shower - just keep pouring water on her until she's clean and worry about it later.

Despite the fact that it was pretty hot, Aiden was so good. I carried him back to the car in the front carrier so that Raleigh could ride in the stroller. He was asleep before we got to the car! He slept the whole way home.

We quickly did baths and both kiddos are napping now. I think Raleigh had a lot of fun (despite one gross potty accident and a big tantrum at the showers!) but Chris probably won't be agreeing to the beach for a while. Guess it is a good thing we have a sandbox in the backyard now!