BEACH BABES

We were sad to send Christy and Cali home, but were excited to be able to head down to Vero for a few days. We were able to stay for three nights. I hadn't been able to visit that place for a long time so it was really nice. After the crazy go go go of our Disney days we really just needed to hang out. We swam and ate and relaxed. Amazingly, I didn't take one picture until the day we went to the beach, and I even had my good camera because I wanted to capture Vivi's first beach experience as well as I could.

First we had dinner at Mulligan's. We had enjoyed such lovely, warm weather, but it did get chilly when we got to Vero. It was still warm, but not as warm as it had been. After our early dinner/late lunch we headed to the beach.

Vivi hated it pretty much right away. Getting sand in her toes? No thanks. I thought she would warm up to it, but she never really did like the water. The water was WARM. Like bath water warm, so it was really ideal for her, but she wasn't having the waves. We did still get some great pictures of her though, and she enjoyed playing in the sand later. Stella and my mom and dad had a great time throwing a toy around like it was a frisbee. It was plenty windy so it made it pretty fun. Overall, Vivi handled the ocean about like I expected her to, and it was a very fun day at the beach.

The next day we had to head back to St. Cloud so we could get some sleep before our early flight home. It is never a fun morning, but we just have to suck it up and deal with it. We stopped off at Waffle House like we usually do so that Vivi could have her first meal there. She was not that into her waffle, but loved my subpar eggs.

When we got to the house, Vivi followed me upstairs and started screaming. I ran to grab her and saw an ant in her hand that had bitten her several times. I turned on the light and we found an ant trail going into Stella's room. She had left some food in there with Cali and had welcomed the ants. Stella was all freaked out after that, but we took care of them. Poor Vivi though--she seemed to wake up with new bites every morning in that house.

We had a pretty stressful morning when the van we had rented got a dead battery. The van was blocking my parents' car so we had a tight squeeze trying to get it out without ruining either car. We got it out though so that was good. We made it to the airport on time thanks to my dad.

Our flight home felt long, but was uneventful. We got home Saturday morning just in time to celebrate Halloween with the ward that afternoon. Mostly now as I look back, I can't believe I got Vivi on all those plane rides, all around Disney, and everywhere else we went without her getting sick. These past months have been full of so much sickness it is a miracle that she stayed healthy enough to enjoy her first big vacation. I'm crossing my fingers that we will have the same luck next week when we go again. Did I mention I bought my plane tickets to Florida while I was in Florida? Well, yes, I did.