miss me yet?

Hello out there!  It's been a few days.  Between my friend Christie's wedding festivities, a few delightful houseguests (hi, Julie! hi, Andrea!), a broken dryer, and a week on the Gulf coast of Florida, I'm afraid my little blog here was pushed to the back burner.  No worries, my friends!  I'm back with vacation stories to tell!

Everyone should get a pedicure on vacation.

We drove 10 hours to Treasure Island, Florida for a week of blissful relaxation with PJ's family.  I think the words "family vacation" hold a bad connotation for some, but ours was truly relaxing.  Papa and Mimi set us up in an awesome hotel right on the beach, and we couldn't have been happier.  We spent a lot of time playing, napping, eating, and doing whatever we wanted to.  For me, that included catching up on some reading; I read Woman at Point Zero, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and Jake, Reinvented.  Don't be too impressed.  All of those are pretty short.

Cara was made for vacation, obviously.

She LOVED playing on the beach and in the pool, which worked out really well for me in my lounge chair.

Okay, I didn't sit in my lounge chair the entire time.  But it sure was nice when I did.

All toddlers throw sand, right?

This girl has no fear of the ocean, which is a little scary to me.

She also has no fear of the pool...



We tried to take some family pictures on the beach, because that's a vacation requirement.

This is the best we could do.

Cara would much rather dance with Papa than pose for pictures.

Who is this handsome young fellow?  I swear, the last time I checked, he was only six years old.

We didn't spend all of our time out in the sun though.  We also went to a children's museum.

So precious, I can't stand it.

I *might* have told an unruly little group of baseball players that if one of the cans they were throwing around this pretend grocery store hit a child that I brought, I would be coming after them.  The look of fear in their eyes *might* have given me a great deal of satisfaction.  Seriously, where were their parents?

the children in motion

Look at that sass.  I love it!

All in all, I count this vacation a huge success because no one got sunburned (I am a "sunscweemies" nazi), I got a t-shirt from Sloppy Joe's with Ernest Hemingway on the back (heck yeah!), and I'm beginning to feel my inspiration returning.  It's gonna be a great week.