I took the girls to the beach for a wonderful 2 weeks. Yes, just the three of us! This was the first time I've taken them on a trip by myself, so I was a little anxious about the drive down and about having them on the beach by myself. But, in the end, it all worked out great. They watched movies and ate snacks on the way down. Catherine took a couple of short naps and Caroline finally managed to go to sleep 30 minutes before arriving at the beachhouse. We had pretty good weather-- some rain, especially in the mornings, as a result of a tropical storm that was passing through. One morning, I took them out in the jog stroller and we had to find shelter under a tree 3 or 4 different times to get out of the rain. The girls were NOT happy about it! But we were able to go out on the beach every day, and most days, the weather was great. We played in the sand and the "yucky water" as Caroline called the inlet that runs from the lake to the Gulf (named so because it is brown). One afternoon, we spent 2 hours sending a boat downstream in the "yucky water." Catherine sat upstream and Caroline stood downstream and Catherine and I would send the boat down to Caroline, whose job was to catch it before it floated out into the ocean. We had a few days that the water was calm enough to swim and Caroline loved getting in and swimming around with her floatie on. I was pleasantly surprised at how much Catherine enjoyed the beach too. She loved sitting in the surf, "shoveling" sand, and being held up over waves as they crashed. And when we got tired of the sand, we played on the deck in the wading pool or with the hose and shower. Caroline loved sitting under the shower to rinse off and giving her doll "Beach Baby" a shower too. We went out for ice cream at Miss Lucille's down at Gulf Place one afternoon and Caroline ended up covered in chocolate ice cream. Then we went and played on the grass lawn and stage that is set up for concerts, just for a change of pace from the beach. The best part of the trip was that Chris came down for the last 4 days. We had lots of fun family time on the beach. We went out to dinner a couple of times. One evening, we drove into Destin to go to the Back Porch and sat beachside while we watched dolphins swimming right outside our window. We also went to Seaside another night for dinner and then for ice cream for dessert. It was a great trip!
