The beach

We enjoyed Emerald Isle all of last week with my entire immediate family and one cousin, her fiancé & two daughters. My sister Elizabeth, her husband Chris and her two girls Abigail & Jessica came down from Michigan and it was also the first time they had met Meredith, so it was awesome. The first day we were there my mom got a fish hook stuck in her leg while she was out in the water with my niece….yikes! Ironically, there was a UNC surgeon in the house next to us and he was able to assist her (even more ironic was that he marched for 4 years in the Cavaliers, which is an incredible drum corps for those of you who didn’t know me in my drum corps days!) She was ok and ended up with a tetanus shot and a nasty cut on her leg and her fingers. Of course we wouldn’t have wanted it to happen at all, but at least it got her instead of my 5-year-old niece!! So, that was a heck of a way to start out the week and thankfully, mom quickly recovered.

We surprised Hillary & Joey with a little bridal shower, celebrated Elizabeth & Chris’s 7th anniversary, my 30th birthday (ouch!) and just had a great time overall. Meredith really crawled for the first time….I think she was after a flip flop to chew on…yum. She did really well with all of the kiddos around. They all loved her and wanted to give all kinds of hugs and kisses. Meredith was totally enthralled with my two-year-old niece Jessie. It may have been because she was the closest to her size, but it also could be because she is just a flash zipping by at any given time. Meredith would just watch her run around and she would smile and laugh. She just seemed to have a great time taking it all in and never seemed irritated when there were 4 little girls in her face! We didn’t get her in the actual ocean at all this time, but there was a baby pool at the house that we brought down to the beach and filled with some ocean water and she had a blast splashing around in that. We also brought her pack and play down to the beach and put it under the tent and she played and napped in that so I could actually get some sun time! There was no chance of just laying her on a blanket this time since she would have been all over the place. She is pretty quick when she is on a mission!

We are back to the grind this week. Chris has had teacher workdays this week and will have kids starting tomorrow. Meredith has been back to the babysitter next door, who we discovered will be moving soon. We have been on the hunt for a new sitter and even found someone, but it just didn’t feel right. I’m not sure what we are going to do, but we need to figure something out soon. A true daycare may need to be what we go with, but they are so expensive and the whole thing just makes me insane when I think about it. Wish I would hit the lotto so I could just stay home with her…wishful thinking.
I will try to post some pictures soon. Got lots of good ones at the beach.