A Refreshing Retreat

Michael and I got the opportunity to spend the week at a resort in Mexico last week...alone! It was our first time away from Boden for more than one night. I was a little nervous about leaving him for so long, but very excited about Michael and I getting to spend some time together. Lately life has just been busy, busy with the new church, Michael's school, buying a house, etc. And we know it's not going to be slowing down soon with the coming arrival of little miss. So, we took the chance when we got it, and had a great time.

this is where we spent most of our days, just relaxing and reading

Boden had a great week with mama & daddy gone, but he was sure excited to see us when we got off the plane - and we were excited to see him too!

Vacation!

We just got back yesterday from a weeklong vacation in Virginia Beach with my side of the family. (well, most of us were on vacation...Michael had class during the day, but was able to join in the fun for the afternoon & evening). We rented a great house in Sandbridge with a pool and lots of other fun things to do and it was just a few houses from the beach. We had fantastic weather too! I have tons of photos to go through but here are a few for now:

playing some golf on the putting green

Swimming with Poppa. He loved going "fwimming" - he has no fear of the water apparently

Running into the ocean. Boden had absolutely no fear of the water at all. It was hard work taking him to the beach because you had to stay within 2 ft of him at all times because he would just dart out into the ocean. He got overtaken by waves a few times and scared us, but it didn't stop him one bit!

And of course - no family vacation to the beach is complete without the "khaki and white family photo". It was interesting to try to get a group photo that included a 2 yr old while using a self timer. He's not real big on standing still for 10 seconds to wait for the photo.

Running on the beach with Daddy. The family photo shoot resulted in Boden getting completely soaked in the ocean.
I will have more photos to post later - but now it's time for a nap :)

more vacation pics

you can see more of our vacation pics here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=147278&l=b1b62&id=1454962510 you don't have to have a facebook account to view them. there's just too many to post on here.

we had a great time. boden did wonderful on the long car ride. we got to spend a wonderful day at the beach and found some fun parks in the area too. michael's class went really well, he got great feedback on his sermon, and learned some invaluable things through the pastors & professor. we stopped over in west virginia on the way home. thanks to dad for checking hotel reviews for us while we were pulling in to charleston - saved us from almost staying in a total dump. the hotel we did find was very nice, but i'd be much happier with it if i hadn't left my brand new memory foam pillow there :( About an hour outside charleston i started looking around for my pillow...i was not happy to find out it wasn't there. but, at least we know it has company....we're pretty sure michael's black belt is there too. lol.

the beach

we made it!

many of you know that we were driving to virginia beach, va for the week this week and i wanted to let you know we made it here safely! it was a long drive...we were thinking it would take about 14.5 hrs, but it ended up being about 17! saturday night after church we finished packing and got the car all packed up. we slept for about 3 hours and then took off from st louis at 3am. i think boden was pretty confused when i got him out of his crib and stuck him in his carseat.

it really was a beautiful drive...west virginia was absolutely breathtaking - the trees were so many vibrant colors. i tried to take some pictures, but pictures from the passenger seat, through the windsheild at 70 mph don't really do it justice. we're going to actually stop on the way home and take some better shots.

tomtom (the gps loaned to us by deronda & myles - thank you!!!) was very helpful. although, it's a pretty straight shot...from st louis you actually take I-64 all the way. but tomtom was very helpful in finding restaurants and starbucks all along the way....and reminding us how much farther we had to go... tomtom says 5 more hours to go!

michael never did sleep in the car - he tried for awhile - but just couldn't get comfortable. so as of 8:45 pm est when we arrived, he had only had 3 hrs of sleep. that starbucks is good stuff. boden did really well in the car. the last hour he was a little fussy, but nothing a half a bag of grahm cracker snacks couldn't cure (does this make me a bad parent? :) )

anyway - we made it! michael has 4 full days of classes ahead and boden and i are off to explore. i think we'll hit up the boardwalk & beach tomorrow, it's supposed to be in the 70s. michael found out he doesn't have class on friday, so we're going to leave on thurs and split up the trip back... i think we'll stop somewhere in west virginia overnight and enjoy the scenery.