First day at the beach on our vacation

Ok, so back to our vacation (maybe by the end of September I'll have blogged about the whole vacation!)

After a lovely time in Atlanta, we headed off to Hilton Head.  I had been there many years before, and I absolutely loved it, and looking back now, I'm so glad we picked it as our destination this year.  I can easily see me spending every vacation there..not sure how Joacim feels about this though.  It's not as though it'll be within reasonable driving distance next year :(



We got to the rented house a little later than planned, but still with enough time to enjoy it.  Oh, geesh...I guess I forgot to mention that my friend Emily and her son, Will, joined us at this point of our vacation.  They met us in Hilton Head, and got there an hour or so before us.  We weren't able to make it to the beach on the first day, but still had a good time getting settled in the house.  We got unpacked, and then Emily and I headed out to the grocery store to stock up for our week.  And apparently everyone else had the exact same idea...that Piggly Wiggly was HOPPIN'!  Rentals on the island are from Saturday to Saturday, and you can see the wave of people coming to the island.  It took us about an hour to get to our house once we got on the island.  Later in the week it only took us 20 minutes.

The house we rented was great..it was LIVED in, so we didn't have to worry so much about making a scratch on the wall or anything, which was a relief.  But the house was really nice, with a private pool downstairs.  Here's a link to the house we rented.  Speaking of the pool...here's Izzy and Joacim taking their first dip in it.

After the kids were in bed, Joacim, Emily and I hung out, had a few drinks (ok, a little more than a few), and an impromptu dip in the pool. Great way to start off a great vacation!

And for some reason, I woke up early the next morning.  I take that back...Izzy and Bri woke up early and woke me up.  I let Joacim sleep off the gin hangover I thought he might have, got the girls some breakfast and got ready to walk to the beach.  Emily and Will woke up and decided to join us.

And what I was most excited for when planning the trip was Brianne's excitement at experiencing the ocean for the first time.  I was not disappointed.  She was just awestruck and giddy as we hiked over the sand dunes and she saw it for the first time.

Her excitement made me happier than I could possibly describe, and I'm so happy that I got to experience this with her.  It's a memory she and I will always have, and I treasure that.

What I love about Hilton Head this time of the year is how warm the water is.  When we took Izzy to Ft. Lauderdale a couple of years ago, the water was freezing.  Granted, it was in late April, but it was still frigid.  Not here though...the water temperature was around 84 degrees, which suited us just fine.  Even Will didn't mind.  Here he is taking a dip. This isn't his first time at the ocean, but he was only a couple of months old the first time on the west coast.

I love Izzy in this dress.  She started calling it her "fireworks dress"...I like it!

 And both of their expressions in this photo crack me up.

 And what was even better is that after our dip in the ocean, we came back and took a dip in the pool (this pretty much became a daily occurrence).  Here's a video of Izzy swimming...there was a pretty strong jet of water that ended up creating a little whirlpool effect.  In this video she ends up getting stuck in a little, and getting quite upset.

And at the end of the day, a cute little baby in the bath :)

Publish Post

Dec 26 - Sleepover

My little sister, niece and nephew stayed the night the evening after Christmas.   What's great about the ages that they are now is that they pretty much entertain themselves AND Izzy :)  And when they weren't entertaining Izzy, she was doing a find job entertaining herself.

I got a new Wii Ski game...it's a lot harder than it looks!

I'm not exactly sure why everyone decided to give me such funny faces, but it works!

The boys spent a LOT of time in these spots

Yes, a hurricane officially hit inside my home.  The mattress was turned over because they were building a "fort" under it.

And then they started using Izzy as their toy.....dressing her up in all kinds of different outfits from her Dora present.  What's funny about this one (besides Taylor's silly face) is that Izzy's pretending to be asleep....standing up.

You can't see this as well, but THIS particular outfit cracked me up because her little skirt was mesh, and her diaper looked a little strange with the outfit...

Here's the kiddos ready for bed...

And breakfast the next morning.  She looks like such a big girl when she's eating her breakfast now...normal bowl...normal spoon.........time is flying........................

Brianne's birthday and a trip to Chicago!

My little sister, Brianne, celebrated her 12th birthday on September 20th.  We were outside most of the day, and the farmers were harvesting the crops.  And I must say that I miss seeing this (but I don't miss the dust!)

Here's Brianne blowing out her candles.  As my gift to Brianne, I decided to take her to Chicago with me for a girl's night.  She had never been to Chicago before, and I wish I could've captured the look on her face when I told her that she was coming with me.  Absolutely priceless, and one that I'll never forget :)

We didn't get to Chicago until late, but after we checked into the hotel, we headed straight out for some shopping.  First stop was The Gap (it was a little chillier than I planned for and wanted to get a sweater), and then to Water Tower Place for some dinner.  After that, we did some more shopping.  Here's Bri sitting near the Water Tower.

Little girl in the BIG city!!!

We walked down to the river because I thought she's want to see that.  She kept making fun of me because I don't like walking over the bridge, but she quickly realized how much it vibrates when cars are driving over it!

After we were done shopping, we stopped at Dunkin Donuts for a snack and then back to the hotel room.  Bri's here playing with my iPad.

The next morning, we got up and had breakfast, headed to Village Pantry to grab some snacks, checked out of the hotel and headed to Soldier's field.  I was participating in the Chicago Nephcure walk (and also photographing it).  Here's Bri with her new friend Gina.  Gina also suffers from FSGS, same disease as me, but this girl has more personality than her little body can handle!  :)

After the walk was over, I took Brianne to get the best taco she'll ever have in her life.  I used to live above this Mexican joint called Taco Burrito Place #3 (no idea where #1 and #2 are) but it is THE BEST TACO AND NACHOS I'VE EVER HAD, and I'd been jonesin' for one for a long time, so it was perfect in every way.

Then we headed back south to take Brianne home.  After I dropped her off, I decided to take a little drive through the country.  There are a bazillion windmills that have gone up right near my parent's house, and I wanted to take some photos of them, plus the light was INCREDIBLE!  This picture below was taken on a country road right north of my parents house.  I used to go on this road every day on my bus route to school.

It's a little freaky standing underneath these things, but they are very quiet...

Question: How do you stay cool in this heat???

Answer:  SLIP 'N SLIDE!!!!

Man, I loved these when I was a kid.  Is it me, or do they seem so much smaller than they did when we were little?  :)  Maybe it's the fact that Bri is so tall that she doesn't really seem to slide very far before she's at the end.

Izzy isn't all that sure abot the slip n slide yet..she has a lot more fun watching Bri

Ah Rosie...such a CUTIE!

And likes to eat bark.

And LOVES the water...

We get this face a lot lately :(

I love her smile here :)

I think this is such a great picture.  To see how these two interact is AWESOME, and this photo really captures it!

Izzy eventually went on the slip n slide, but here were the results :)

she didn't seem to mind too much!

More fun with Auntie Brie

Auntie Bri....again, the biggest helper.  After bath last night, she tried so hard to comb Izzy's hair...

And Izzy thought it was more fun to run away...

yeah, neither one of these girls were happy it was morning this morning...

Bri was gettin' some luv from Lemmy while watching a movie..

Love the way she says Bri's name!