Thanksgiving was a blast. Kevin's grandparents have rented a different beach house each Thanksgiving for a few years so that everyone has a place big enough to get together. They rent it for the week, and whenever you can get there, there'll be a room for you.
With work, we ended up leaving Tuesday evening and getting there around 9pm. Adelaide slept 3.5 out of the 4 hours!!! Amazing. We kept looking at each other and grinning. Adelaide does NOT like her carseat, so this was a great way to start the vacation!
Everyone LOVED Adelaide. She would walk into a room (or be carried, whatever) and whoever was there would smile and say how happy she looked, that she was always smiling, and wanted to talk with her. She, of course, being the social baby she is, loved all the attention. At some point, she let everyone hold her for a bit, but she was most comfortable walking around and exploring the place. We got to see her and her cousin (about 4.5 years old) playing... like, chasing and squealing and laughing. It was so cute!
Instead of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, each person was to prepare an appetizer of some sort to share. Then we piled them on the huge circle dinner table and dug in. Unfortunately, it's a family of meat-eaters, so I really only had the salsa I made and some vegetarian baked beans. Everything else was meat or dairy filled. I made sure to bring lots of steamed veggies for Adelaide, so she was good for the week.
Breastfeeding made the week so much easier! I always knew she had something to eat, just right, always at the ready. It made going to sleep so easy for her, even though we were in a new place. It was able to calm her down when she got over-stimulated with all the people and attention. Just some perks :)
And, maybe most exciting: Adelaide saw the beach for the first time. The house was right on the beach, so we just had to walk down and there we were. The first couple times I set her down on the sand, she freaked out a little bit. It's a different feeling under her little toes, and the sand was cold. But by the third time, she was pulling our hands to walk out to the water, laughing when the waves went back to the ocean, and squealing/screaming happily in anticipation for the next wave! It was amazing to see her warm up to the beach and the water so easily.
And now for part 1 of the pictures: Enjoy!
Loving the wind.
Lots of hugs these days!
Early morning sunrise with my daughter.
Exploring... meeting The Captain.
I wish my house had natural lighting like this!
My parents-in-law scuba diving!
With Great-Granddad.
Kevin and his younger sister.
4 generations.
The Browns (missing a sister and her husband and her baby bump!)
The two that make these Thanksgiving trips possible.
The whole gang (missing three (four?) people.)
Stay tuned for picture post #2.
Don't baby hugs just get better & better as they get older. I love how they hand onto you so tight & rest their heads on your shoulder. So lovely!
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