We are so incredibly thankful that Mom and Vern took us on vacation again this year. It's such a blessing to get to spend a week away from our normal routines and just play with the girls. It's also a huge blessing for us to spend time together with the extended family. Caroline and Libby both love Gigi and Granddude and Caroline and Kelsey are the best of friends.
Here come a ton of pictures and just a few words. :-)
We spent lots of time at the pool...
Libby was attached to her bucket!!
The next thing you know she is coming down the slide!
With Daddy there to catch her. All in her own time!
The kiddie area was awesome! The girls all loved it!
Libby was attached to her bucket!!
Love this girl! She was so brave this week. We learned that she likes to do things on her own time. One day this week Caroline took my hand and said, "Come with me. I'm going to jump off the side of the pool." Ummm...ok!
There was also a good size water slide at the pool. For 3 days we tried to get Caroline to go down it. All of a sudden one day, she just hopped up and strutted over to the stairs. We couldn't believe it!
The next thing you know she is coming down the slide!
With Daddy there to catch her. All in her own time!
and a couple of mornings at the beach.
I was so thankful for Mark, who spent a good chunk of time swimming in the ocean with Caroline. Mark and I remarked several times how awesome it is that he can now swim!!
Sad there is a water drop on this picture but Libby's face is too cute!
Lots of hanging out and playing. Libby is the baby whisperer...
There were also several nights of "rides," I was surprised at how much the girls liked the different rides.
I was also surprised that Mom conquered another one of her height fears and did the zipline across a pond!
Mark is enjoying teasing her. :-)
Matchy...
Matchy. The children were planned, the adults...not so much but it was fun. ;-)
We had a great time going to a pirate dinner show this night!! We were all in!
Love watching the girls faces as they watched the show. They were captivated.
Libby was so awesome through the whole thing. It's so easy to treat her like the "baby" because she is our youngest and because she has so few words at this point. However, it's awesome to see her take cues from Caroline and others around her. She hangs in there with the big kids too and sat through the whole show like a big girl. :-)
The picture also shows her black eye that she got on our first night. We're still not entirely sure what happened. She was standing with a remote in her hand and all of a sudden she was on the floor crying. We think she just fell and bonked the remote on her eye and the coffee table. Poor girl.
The plan was to swim and wear them out in the morning, sleep in the afternoon and go out on the town at night. It was perfect! We enjoyed several nights out!
We also went to see some animals one night. You could "hold" a baby tiger and a monkey (of some sort)!
Caroline happily agreed to do it and then quickly regretted that decision!
One other night activity was the large ferris wheel on the beach.
On the last morning we woke them up early to head for home. We certainly wore them out!
Precious girls!
My sweet family!
We could not have been any more thankful for this time with our family! Thank you to Gigi and Grandude for inviting us to come along!
