Sophia's First Trip to the Beach!

Trey and I celebrated Memorial Day Weekend at the beach on Hilton Head Island.  We had such a great time and I'm so glad I was able to convince Trey to book the trip a few months ago.  My dad had a dental conference there to get continuing ed credits and when he mentioned they were going back in March I immediately thought that would be perfect timing to take Sophia to the beach for some family fun right before my maternity leave was over.  Figured it would be nice to have some extra help with my parents there and I was right.  And as an added bonus, Sophia got to meet my brother Ryan since he and Meghan decided to tag along too because they needed to be in Savannah for part of the weekend getting things ready for their October wedding.

We drove up Thursday night after work and got there around 12:30 am.  Sophia was an angel and basically slept the entire way.  Couldn't have asked for more there.  Then we got up Friday morning and headed to the beach.  I had been trying to get ready for this trip for weeks (not that it took weeks but I was so anxiously anticipating the vacation that I kept making trips to the store to get little swim items, etc for Sophia).  I brought so many little gizmos and gadgets out to the beach and ultimately day 1 was a little chaotic and unsuccessful.  It's kinda funny looking back because we felt so prepared with a tent, fan, padding for her to lay on, etc. but I think she was just a little overwhelmed with the bright sun and wind and couldn't get comfie.  We probably stayed out there about an hour and she was done.  She did take a little nap by the pool though so we were able to enjoy the resort.

someone was excited to head to the beach!

Sophia and all her beach gear - oh and the fan didn't really work either. ha

That night though all hell broke loose.  Not sure what happened to our normally tame and sweet little girl but poor thing was not a happy camper AT ALL.  She cried and cried and cried so much as we were trying to get ready.  I almost called my parents to say go to dinner without us.  But, we finally calmed her down and headed to the Lighthouse Restaurant in Palmetto Dunes.  Then more chaos ensued.  I guess everyone in Hilton Head was there that night so while Trey and I dropped my parents off to try to get our reservation at 8 pm we literally didn't park the car until 9:05!  I kid you not.  1 hour to find a parking spot.  Ridiculous!  But the icing on the cake was that Sophia exploded before we got out of the car and when I went to change her realized she had completely soaked through her outfit.  This was about the point where Trey and I nearly lost it.  In our hour drive around the parking lot, we missed the sunset and our photo op with the beautiful scenery and we were almost too pissed off to even go to dinner at that point.  But, we made it finally and the food was worth the wait.  Sophia was happy and asleep by that point and all was well with the world.

Day 2 at the beach we learned from our mistake the day before and decided to just take baby girl down to the beach in her car seat and stroller.  Worked like a charm and she slept the whole day.  It was so much fun and very relaxing.  For dinner we headed to Nick's Seafood and Salty Dog Cafe for t-shirts and dessert.  It was the Perfect day and Sophia topped it off by sleeping through the night until 7 am.  In fact she did that every day we were there, regardless of when we put her down.

much more comfortable in her car seat and shade

Day 3 went much the same and came to an end all too soon.  All in all, we had such a wonderful time and I was so sad to leave.  I can't wait to go back to the beach next month and think it will be even more fun now that Sophia is become so alert.  

View from the Black Marlin Restaurant our last night

I was also especially sad to leave knowing that when we got home I'd have to start work - which I did today.  More on that later but needless to say, it wasn't half bad.  The nanny starts on Thursday though so we'll see how that goes.  I'm more anxious about that than I was about my first day.