Kaylin Goes to the Beach!

We had an amazing time on our road trip! Kaylin was an excellent baby - she is so laid back and just goes with the flow. Here's a summary...

Thursday night after work we drove down to Albany to spend the night with the grandparents. On the way, Kaylin visited her first rest stop after having a seriously messy diaper. We got to Albany around 11pm and visited with g-ma and g-pa until about 12:30 when we all crashed. No pictures of this visit due to the late hour, but, as usual, it was great to see them. We got up early Friday morning and were on the road at 7am.

I must still be all hormonal from having Kaylin because I teared up when we crossed into Florida. Billy looked at me and said, "Seriously?" Ha. I was surprised to be welling up, too, but it was a big deal. My baby's first time in Florida! We went to see Kaylin's other grandpa (we need another name for one of the grandpas... suggestions?) before heading out to Kelly's condo. He hasn't seen Kaylin since she was 1 week old! It was great to see him and catch up.

When we got out to the condo, the weather was nasty so we just chilled for a while. The weather channel made it sound like we weren't going to have any good weather the whole time we were there, but luckily that wasn't the case. We went out for pizza later that night. I'm trying to forget that I dropped a warm pepperoni on Kaylin's leg while nursing her and eating. I feel like a tool. Maybe I should stop multi-tasking.

The weather was still gloomy on Saturday, but that didn't stop Billy from putting on his swim trunks first thing. (Ha! Love you baby!) We got Kaylin in her bathing suit and went out for a bit. Since it was so nasty and I didn't plan on staying out long, I didn't put on any sunscreen. Big mistake. Kelly's over there slathering on tan accelerator and I'M the one who gets fried. I was only out for 30 minutes, then applied SPF 30 and went back out for another 30 minutes. Ugh. Anyway, Kaylin had on SPF 55 and was under her shade for most of the time. (unless she was nursing) She played for a little while but mainly napped in her car seat. We didn't put her in the pool because the water was pretty chilly. Maybe next time. It was really windy but we did walk down to the beach and dipped Kaylin's toes in the water for the first time.

We went out to eat at The Crab Shack later and had some fantastic seafood. I ate about 2 lbs of crab legs and Billy had a shrimp po-boy. Yum! Kaylin demanded a feeding when we arrived, so while I nursed in the back seat of the car, Billy and Kelly had a drink at the bar. Thank goodness Kaylin didn't need to eat during dinner - my hands were covered in crab and melted butter!


We finally got to spend some time out on the beach Sunday! We set up the tent so Kaylin and I could stay out of the sun. She played for a little while then nursed and fell asleep. (Are you seeing a pattern here? We nursed all over the place...the pool, the beach, restaurants...) We (and by "we" I mean Kelly) cooked a great dinner - boiled shrimp, corn, potatoes and hush puppies - and ate it outside. Good times!



After dinner, we took a walk on the beach. It was so nice ... soft sand under our toes and a nice breeze coming off the water. Kaylin was oblivious - she fell asleep as we left the condo. Sweet baby. :) When we got back, Billy packed up most of our stuff so we could get an early start for our drive back home.

Kaylin was a good baby on the way back, but we could tell she was getting tired of being in her car seat. We stopped a couple of times so I could nurse and change her, then again to have some lunch. By the time we got on GA 400 she was DONE with being in the car.

I'm proud of us for doing a road trip with a baby this small. Was it a challenge? Definitely. Was it different than our previous beach trips? Absolutely. But would we have rather stayed at home? Not a chance!