Four day vacay.

My four days off was exactly what I needed.  The first day, Thursday, Mallory had her end of year preschool program and party.  Here are all the little cuties in the 18 month old class.  Mallory pretty much just stared at me the whole time making funny faces instead of singing, but she was still adorable!

Friday, Mallory stayed with Mema and I had a 'me' day.  Trish & I spent the day at the pool chatting & napping on floats.  It was heaven.  We picked Mallory up at 3, packed up for the beach and got there before 6.  Patrick dropped Mal and I off at Rucker Johns for us to put our name down.  He went to the house to drop off the cold stuff & turn on the AC & came back to meet us.  It was perfect timing and dinner was great.  Mallory even behaved for us to semi enjoy our meal, ha!

After dinner, we took Mallory walking on the beach.  I have always had this fear of taking her to the beach for some reason (that's why this was only her 2nd time ever going!), but she loves it & it wasn't bad at all!  I don't know what I've been so scared of!

 It got dark & we had to threaten to leave her there to get her to walk back to the house with us.  She was so content sitting there & playing in the sand.

It's tough to reason with an almost 2 year old, but we finally convinced her to come off the beach!

On Saturday, we went to Atlantic Beach to meet up with Ashley & Megan.  Patrick went fishing with the guys & the girls hung out mostly at the pool.  It took about an hour to coax Mallory off the pool steps.  Shew!  She is definitely in a scared phase...where she seems to be scared of lots of things all of a sudden.  Who in the world could she have gotten that from???  She couldn't stand her feet not touching the bottom of the pool, but she finally realized she could float & learned to enjoy it.  Megan took pictures of Mallory & I in the pool, but my camera was still in manual mode from the night before & none of them turned out since it was so bright.  I don't know of any way to fix them, do any of my photog friends know??  I'm thinking there isn't...

On Sunday, back at EI, we went on the beach with Keith, Nikki & Jack.  

My little beanpole

When I look at Jack in this pic, he looks just like his mommy!!

 He is the complete opposite of Mallory - fearless!  He loved the ocean and couldn't get enough of it!

Love his little cheeks :)

Two cuties

The day before, someone had a kite out at the pool and Mallory seemed infatuated with it so Patrick had bought her one to carry on the beach.  She stood & held onto it for the longest time, looking around at everyone like 'look at me, I'm flying this kite!'  It was cute.

It was back to work today for Patrick and me, but we had a great little family getaway which was just what we needed.  I think I have overcome my fear of taking a baby to the beach so I'm hoping for many more beach trips this summer!