What a week we've had! We've just come home from our summer vacation, a week on Amelia Island with the McNeely clan. This was the Browning Family's first ever week-long family vacation. We've been planning this trip and looking forward to it since Christmas and it certainly did not disappoint!
How to sum it all up in one blog post? How about this: 7 days, 3 fevers, 2 date nights, 2 visits with good friends, 2 pairs of sunglasses lost to the sea, 1 urgent care visit, and 26 hours with no AC! But also countless sandy sunny mornings, salty waves, cold cocktails, good food and mostly great friends.
Our first full day at the beach was so exciting. To introduce Matty to the ocean (well, he did see it when he was 8 weeks old but I'm fairly certain he has no recollection of it) at any beach would have been exciting, but since this was where I grew up going with my family it had an added note of nostalgia. And I mean the very beach...a mere 1 block from the very spot I rested my own sandy bottom as a wee one.
I'm not sure Matty really knew what to do with the ocean. Afterall, even hardened adults become overwhelmed at the sight of it. I can only imagine being 2 and trying to take it all in. The water, as it turned out, wasn't quite Matty's speed, which deep down I sort of already knew. He ventured out a time or two in the safe harbor of parental arms, but mostly he spent the week parked on his keister, contently playing in the sand. While Jakers, on the other hand, tore up and down the shore like he was seeing was an old friend!
Monday night we hitched a ferry ride over to Mayport to a popular greasy spoon for dinner. And damn it was good. Matty "drove" us to and from on the boat ride, and the boys enjoyed drumming the table, seeing the hundred or so hand carved boats in the back room and well of course, the hush puppies.
Julianna will get a hush puppy next time!
By Tuesday we'd developed sort of a routine. In the mornings, Caroline and I would head to the beach with the little ones for the morning before the sun got too hot. Then after we'd fed everyone lunch and tucked everyone in for naps, we'd take our chairs and our cold cocktails and head down for some girl chat for a couple of hours. That afternoon, Brian came down with a second chilled vokda-whatever and told us "not to hurry back, the AC just died." While that sounded awful with our toes in the sand, it was nothing compared to the awful reality when we got home! After some heavy debate and a Wal-Mart trip for a few fans, we opted to brave the heat in the house for one night rather than gather everything up for a few hours. Before bedtime that night we hosed down our little red-neck babies in their diapers in cold water to make them as comfortable as we could for as long as we could! It was a rough, hot night though for everyone and come naptime the next day, just before the AC was turned back on, Matt had decidedly had enough. Refused nap in the sauna we'd parked him in, so Brian drove him around in the Tahoe with the arctic wind blasting him til he fell asleep.
(I swear there
is a diaper on here!)
I'd like to say the rest of the week went on uneventfully but with 3 small children is anything uneventful? Matty ran fever, then Jake, then Julianna. But mostly everyone was fine other than what appeared to be a dreadful allergy for Matty. Nasty tummy gave way to an awful diaper rash one day that come the next morning had taken over his entire body. I tried to keep my cool but as it spread so did my panic and we ended up at urgent care. I was so fearful we'd give the little McNeely's some yucky virus. Luckily it was decided it was an allergic reaction, to what we've no idea and thus ended the health debacles for the week...just in time to go home!
Playing corn hole.
Playing "Putt-Putt for the fun-of-it" - yes the same one from 30 years ago!
The night before we left, we finally squeezed in a visit with my Aunt Ann, with whom we used to stay a hundred years ago. It was such a surprise our first day there to stumble upon their new house on a walk, literally 1 block from our house. I had to post a pic of their new palace, it's simply breathtaking! I know where I'll be staying sometime soon!
Thank you, Amelia! We had a great time! Save us a spot in the sand - we'll defintely be back!
