Heavenly!

There is no other way to describe Gavin's first trip to the beach! The only thing that could have made it any better was if we could have stayed for a few more days.  Since this was Gavin's first trip, we didn't want to plan a long stay just in case he didn't really enjoy it.  So we decided to get up really early on Saturday and then come home around lunch on Sunday.

The plan was to leave around 6 so we could be on the beach around 8:30 to maximize our beach time before lunch and nap time.  I was also concerned about how much beach time we would actually get because when I checked the weather on Friday it said thunderstorms Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday.  Of course no matter how well I plan, we never leave on time, but we did manage to get out of there by 7.

I know it is hard to tell from the fake smile, but Clay really was excited!

Once we got on I-10 we had to break out the laptop for the customary viewing of Nemo.  I am so glad he never gets tired of it because that is the only movie we have :-).

I also found out on Friday while perusing Facebook, that one of my really good friends that I haven't seen in FOREVER, was visiting her hometown of Jacksonville this weekend!!  She agreed to come and meet us at the beach with her super sweet nephew Aiden who was so patient with Gavin.

HAPPY BOY!

Gavin is mulling over the perfect timing for the ultimate destruction of all of their hard work, while he takes a snack break.

Gavin kept chasing all of the "birdies" and I had a fantastic idea to take some of his Goldfish and feed them.  the seagulls also thought it was a fantastic idea and did all kinds of tricks like catching them in mid air.  Gavin was very impressed and I was a little worried they were going to try and take the bag out of our hands.

After feeding the seagulls all of the sandy Goldfish, it was time to head in and change clothes so we could go grab some lunch.

Our precious little pack-mule, carrying all his beach toys.

Let me stop right here and tell you about this wonderful place we stayed, One Ocean Resort.  We had stayed there quite a few years ago back when it was the Sea Turtle Inn and loved the location and the beach.    We had requested an early check-in since Gavin would need a nap and they said they could hopefully accommodate us about 1:30.  So when we pulled up to park at 9:30 and they said our room was ready, we were so excited!  Even if the rooms had been a complete dump, I would highly recommend this place, for nothing but the great service that we got.  Not only did they get us in our room super early but every employee that we passed in the hall stopped to speak to us, they came in while we were at dinner and cleaned our room and turned down the bed.  I can't even think of all the things they did to impress me, but I will say I was very impressed.  Then to top it off the rooms were beautiful, comfortable, and had a view of the beach.  

So back to the trip, my friend Anne-Marie had recommended we go to a local diner down the street for lunch called the Sun-Dog, which served brunch with limited lunch but had our necessary requirements of hamburgers and hot dogs.  So we had a big lunch and headed back to the hotel for a much needed nap.  I was a little worried about this since we were all in one room, I wasn't sure if Gavin would go down very easy.  For some reason Clay and I had this genius idea that Gavin could take a nap in the big bed with me instead of in his pack in play.  Well after 40 minutes of playing and being threatened with spankings and sleeping by himself in the pack in play, Gavin finally settled down and fell asleep for a short nap.  When he woke up we rushed into our bathing suits and back downstairs to try and get in a little beach time before the afternoon thunderstorms began.

He wore both the "gobbles" and his sunglasses for quite awhile.  Funny little boy...

We were really blessed and the rain actually went around us so we got several more hours in on the beach before heading back to the room for showers so we could go in search of dinner.  One thing that is really nice about staying at One Ocean, is the fact that everything in the downtown Atlantic/Neptune beach area is right there.  So once again we walked to a little restaurant called Sliders and had dinner before we trekked to Walgreens to pick up some milk for Gavin.  Gavin definitely enjoys being carried and lately is in a Mommy  phase, so I got quite the workout lugging him around all weekend.  Hopefully I worked off some of the 1 million calories I consumed in the 1.5 days we were there....

This was taken right before Gavin hit the red button, which sounded the alarm..... praise the Lord, it only went off for a second and no one was waiting for us when we ran off of the elevator to make our quick escape.

Day 2 started out with a walk to the Beach Diner we had eaten at last time we came with THE BEST pancakes I have ever eaten and that is saying a lot because I have eaten A LOT of pancakes!!  They definitely did not disappoint and I definitely made a pig of myself.  Good thing it was a fairly long walk and I was carrying a really heavy toddler so maybe I worked off some of it.

We then raced out to the beach to savor the last few hours before heading back home.  Once again we were blessed with beautiful weather!

Gavin started to get bored with old Mom and Dad so he wandered off down the beach a little way to inspect some wake boards he had seen some older kids playing with.

Once I saw him getting a little to familiar with someone else's belongings I had to go down there to intervene before he tried to take it.

This was his display of unhappiness at my insistence that he get off the wakeboard and come back with me.

This is his devilish grin of defiance :-)

After that it was time to head back to the room and check out.  I was really sad and REALLY wanted to stay another day but it was made obvious to me after we left that it would have been a complete waste of money when before we could even get on to I-10 a major thunderstorm hit and didn't let up for pretty much the entire drive home.  So the Lord blessed us with an absolutely heavenly family mini-vacation that reminded me how much I love the beach and that we really need to try and schedule another one before it gets cold.