Well this past weekend the Elliott's headed to the beach! We decided that since Cam wasn't having his hand surgery that we should take advantage of a free summer weekend and take our first family vacation that didn't involve a hospital stay. So we decided that since this will be my dad's last fathers day before he heads to Iraq in July that it would be really nice to spend it with him at the beach! And that is exactly what we did.
We left Friday morning around 9 a.m. for what is supposed to be a 5 hour drive. We managed to extend that to 9 hours....a very long 9 hours. Well first of all packing for Cameron was exhausting. I felt like I needed to pack his entire room in order to not forget anything important....and then all the toys I thought I needed to pack started to consume a lot of space, and then the idea of a nice stress free weekend at the beach turned into me being completely stressed about packing for the beach, and so I just packed until I was sure I had it all and then we headed out. Paul's aunt lives in Raleigh so we decided that it would be a good idea to possibly stop there along the way to break up the trip. Stopping at her house would have been half way for us, so we called her to make sure it was OK and that is what we did. It was great to get our screaming child out of his seat for a bit so that he could cool off and eat and play a little before we put him back in his seat to scream for another hour until we arrived in Greenville.
We decided to stop in Greenville, because we knew Cam would need to eat again and also because after Paul and I got married we moved to Greenville and lived there for about 6 months. Paul got a teaching job outside of Greenville and so that is where we went. I can't say that I loved Greenville, because it sucked....it was hot, and I didn't have any friends, but I did grow to like it somewhat, and eventually made wonderful friends that I still talk to! Anyhoo, after our pit stop in Greenville, we headed on down the road to the beach.
We ended up making it at about 6 pm Friday evening and boy was Cam happy when we took him to the room, took off his clothes and just laid him on the bed. He was all smiles and giggles. Then we took him down to the ocean for the first time, and let him stand in the water. He didn't seem to mind it and was loving being outside and having the ocean breeze blowing in his face.
Saturday we took Cam in the pool, and then we met up with my dad and step-mom and went to the aquarium. Cam loved looking in all the fish tanks and at all the animals. But towards the end it was definitely getting close to nap time so he had a small meltdown and so my dad bought him a toy from the gift shop to keep him happy. Little did we know this stuffed seahorse he bought him would become one of his favorite toys. So thanks dad!! Saturday night my dad and step-mom came to our hotel and watched Cam so Paul and I could go play putt-putt. It was so nice to go out alone at the beach, and to spend some quality time just having fun with each other.
Sunday, which was fathers day, was spent by taking Paul to Dunkin Doughnuts for breakfast...out of all the places he could have picked that is where he chose to go....? Then we met up with my dad at his campground and played in the ocean for a few hours, then headed back to the hotel to get dressed to go out to dinner with my parents. After dinner my dad wanted to play putt-putt so we decided to take Cam and go play with them. Cam did well and we all had a lot of fun.
Monday we headed home and again spent about 9 hours making a 5 hour trip....but all worth it. All in all we had a wonderful first family vacation. I'm so glad that God has blessed us with this sweet boy that we are able to do these things with. Even though I complain and gripe a lot about how unfair I feel about having to watch my little boy endure so much, I also get to see him experience new things and grow and smile and laugh, and for that I feel blessed!
No comments:
Post a Comment