SK 2010 - Drum Circle

As I mentioned before, after dinner we headed back to the beach for the Drum Circle. When we booked our trip, we were told by the condo management company to be sure to go to the Drum Circle on Sunday evening. It was quite a site! It is all local people playing the drums. They have hulahoops all around for the kids (and some adults) to play with. It was a lot of fun to watch and of course Luke did some dancing too!

In the back of the picture, you can see all of the different drums.

See that lady in the middle of the picture...she is balancing a real sword on her head!

The next 2 pictures give you an idea of the crowd. I think even more people came as the sun went down.

Luke loved this guy! He really wanted his maraccas!

My little stud muffin!

Luke enjoyed the hulahoops!

He was definitely intrigued with this lady!

This guy was just randomly in the crowd - not with all of the other drummers, but he was awesome!

Luke was cheering for everyone!

Then we took a walk down to the water...watch what happens in the next 3 pictures...

PLOP! He plopped himself right down in the water - oy!

SK 2010 - Sunday Funday

Sunday morning kicked off with church at 8 AM. You do know my husband right? We don't miss church, and when he commented on how we made it down to Florida safely, I couldn't really argue with him about going to church. So we hit up an early mass that was a half-mile away so we could get to the beach ASAP. Once we got back, we changed, packed up and made our way to the beach around 9:45.

This was our set-up for the day, well pretty much all week!

Luke wasn't as fond of the water as he was the night before, but he slowly got used to it!

This is what he did most of the day.

At point, I think the whole beach was laughing at Luke. We had packed a picnic lunch and that brought the birds around us. I HATE birds so I was shoo-ing them away. Well, Luke started "shoo-ing" them away too. He would chase them all over the beach saying "GO" and waving his hand at them - it was hilarious!

Luke also did some dancing - of course!

Then it was time to bury him - he thought this was so funny!

We headed back to the condo around 1:30 and Luke napped until about 4:30. We showered and headed to the Village where we "enjoyed" dinner at an Italian restaurant. Luke was kind of a beast during dinner most of the trip. He was "all done" before we even got our food so dinners were fairly quick and not so relaxing. I think we are done eating out for a bit! After dinner Luke was asking to sit in his stroller so we took advantage. We went into a few beach shops and found a wine tasting. This was much needed after the dinner we just had with a crabby little boy. Then we headed back to the beach for the drum circle they have there every Sunday night. That deserves it's own separate post. Lots of pictures to come!

SK 2010 - The Condo and The View

Here are a few pictures of our condo. I meant to take pics of the whole thing - bedrooms, bathrooms, dining area, the building itself, etc. but apparently I never got to it. The place was very nice. We were on the 6th floor (of 7) and there were only 4 condos on each floor so each one was a corner unit. Ours was the best corner though - Gulf View and Pool View (I wouldn't settle for anything less :) ). The balcony was an L-shape so got both views. The only downfall of the condo was the very tiny, narrow kitchen.

I love this picture - the winding beach road is what we walked everyday to the beach!

SK 2010 - We've Arrived!

My plan was to leave our hotel Saturday morning around 7 AM, but Luke was still sound asleep. He started coughing and sneezing in the car the day before and his nose was pretty runny so I thought it was best to just let him sleep and hope we can fight off the cold. He finally woke up around 7:30, we showered, enjoyed some continental breakfast, and were on the road again by 8:45. Around 11 AM, Luke was asking to get out so I had to quickly distract him. He fell asleep about 11:45, but unfortunately we needed to get gas at about 12:30. We were hoping to get some gas, pick up some Taco Bell to go, and then just give him that when he woke up. But, as we all do, as soon as we exited the highway and slowed down he woke up. So it turned into a short nap and we decided to just get out and eat there.

Luke did great in the final stretch and we arrived at the condo around 3:30! We got ourselves settled there and then headed over to Siesta Village to check it out. The Village is full of different restaurants, beach shops, and an ice cream shop (of course!). We grabbed some dinner down there and then I was so excited to take Luke to the beach that night!

This was the look we got the first time he stepped in the sand. Luke has never really played in sand before so this was all new to him!

As you can see, he wasn't liking it too much at first!

Daddy showed him it was ok to touch...

and then Luke touched it too!

By the time we got down closer to the water, he was having no problem with the sand!

or the water!

He was LOVING it!!!

A little Baywatch :)

He really showed no fear - both exciting and scary!

He was very sad when we had to leave for the night. We promised he would be back everyday for the next 6 days!

Once he said "bye bye" to the ocean everything was better! (Yes, we and he call it the ocean. We know it is The Gulf, but who doesn't just call it the ocean!)

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We called it a night at the beach. We headed back where Luke was pretty much done for the night so Wally stuck around with him while I made our grocery run for the week! We've finally arrived and have 6 full days of nothing but fun in the sun!

Siesta Key (SK) 2010 - The Drive Down

We began the drive to Siesta Key, FL Friday, July 30th at 4:30 AM. I was able to change Luke's diaper while he was still sound asleep, but he woke up as I was putting him in the car seat. He was a chatterbox for about 15 minutes and then just kind of zoned out. He fell asleep from about 5:20 until 6:30. I packed breakfast so we pulled that out at about 7:30.

We made our first stop at about 10:45. We needed gas and Luke needed a diaper change. I changed his clothes for the day and the gas station happened to be right across from a McDonald's with an outdoor play area so we let Luke run loose for a bit. We were back on the road by 11:05. After a little reading, Luke took an hour nap.
We stopped for lunch in La Vergne, TN at about 12:45. We hit the road again about 1:45. The car was stocked full of snacks, dvd's, books, and toys. We went from one dvd to the next. Generally not making it through one until he wanted a different one. Wally was driving and it was my job to keep Luke happy. I will tell you Luke was so great in the car (there were no meltdowns or asking to get out), but at times I think it would have been more relaxing to be the driver :) Luke received whatever he wanted in the car at his request. His snack of choice that day was cheerios. He never has been a big cheerio eater, but it kept him happy that day!

We made it through the mountains, through a bit of Atlanta traffic and were about 45 minutes from Macon, GA which was our stop for the night, when we came to a stop. There was a lot of traffic, although we had no idea why so we decided to just pull off and eat some dinner. It was 6:30 EST by then. We ate at Chik-Fil-A, which had a play area for Luke too. He was thrilled and really didn't want to leave. We finally arrived to our hotel at 8:15. We did some playing and rough-housing in the hotel room and we all hit the sack around 9:45. We all slept in one bed and let me tell you, the only one who got a good night's sleep was Luke! That kid flips and flops and tosses and turns more than anyone I know. I was just waiting for 6 AM to come around so we could get back on the road!

Day 1 on the road was a success (12 hours of driving, a toddler who slept only about 2 hours, and 0 meltdowns!) - only about 6 more hours to go!

Luke was as cool as a cucumber in the car! Check out the shades he put on himself!

We're Back!

Our first family vacation was a HUGE success!!! I can definitely say that all three of us had the best time. I will go into probably too much detail day-by-day, but for now - a few things to know!

• We had PERFECT weather - I am not kidding! It was very hot and humid, but hello! we were going to Florida in August that is exactly what we expected and we are from IL and had just left that kind of weather anyways. The difference is we had a pool, the beach, the gulf, and plenty of ice cream to help keep us cool. And unlike typical Florida weather where you might have a thunderstorm during the day, not even once did that happen when we were there! A couple of rain showers in the evenings, but that's it!
  
• Luke did better than I ever could have imagined driving there and back. He did soooo good!
• We obviously didn't watch a lot of tv, but Wally did manage to catch a couple of episodes of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. I quickly put the kibosh on that though. Big bodies of water and me don't always go well together so really Shark Week came at the wrong time! I did really good though...I probably went out further in the water than I ever have (believe me, that really isn't that far!).
• We also saw our first episode of Jersey Shore. Somehow I have managed to not be sucked in to that reality show (as I am with most others). Wally and I decided though that we should have just stayed in Florida and rather than GTL, we could have a show with the phrase PGB (pool, golf, beach) for him and PNB (pool, nap, beach) for Luke and me!
• I was completely not my typical self. I would forget things I normally would never forget when we would go out, but I didn't make a big deal out of it. I relied on Wally for way more than I usually do. I was completely relaxed and stress-free. Wally said he couldn't decide if he liked this super-relaxed Amy (which meant he needed to pick up the slack) or super-organized Amy better!
• I made sure to take a lot of pictures, but I also made sure to not always be stuck behind the camera. I wanted to be part of the fun and not just documenting it! So while I still have a lot of pictures, you can only imagine what it would have been like if I played "photographer" for a week!
  
• We seriously had a great time and while I was waiting all summer for vacation and people couldn't understand why we were going so late in the summer, it actually was good timing. With summer winding down, we got in 10 days of solid, family fun so that it ends on a high-note!

I will leave you with one picture - the only family picture we took...sigh!