Sydney Talk: Vacation!!!

We are on vacation!

Last Friday, mom took off to take me to my new school orientation (more about that in a minute) and to finish getting things ready for our week at the beach. Long story short, I have been on the "waiting list" to go to a new school for a year and a half. I really liked my last school in Rockville, but mom didn't like how much time we were having to spend in the car :( It added between 30-45 minutes to her commute, so she was ready to have me somewhere closer to home. We found out a few weeks ago that our school of choice had an opening for me starting July 11th!!! Of course that's the week we're on vacation, so mom said we'd start on the 18th. I finished up school in Rockville last week, will take this week off with mom and dad and will start at the new school next Monday. I was a little apprehensive at the orientation, but I think I'll be ok. I know three other kids in my class and Zachary is in the next older room, so there are plenty of friends to look out for me. I did cry while mom was doing the intake conference with my teacher, Ms. Martha, but I was fine once mom came back for me :) I'm very excited about the upcoming year and know that I will learn a lot. It was sad to say goodbye to my friends and teachers, but I think we'll stay in touch!

After our orientation, Grandma and Grandpa came to our house so they could spend some time with me and pick up Raz. Raz is going to spend a few weeks at their house so mom and dad didn't have to send her to the "spa" (aka the kennel). I'm going to miss her, but I know she's having fun. Mom told me that Grandma and Grandpa have a kitty that looks exactly like Raz. Grandma and Grandpa brought me lots of goodies to take on my trip! Here's me in my new hat, looking at my bathing suit and Penn State dress!

Mom bought me a new Fox in Socks puzzle and I really enjoyed putting it together with Grandpa.

I got to play with Grandma and Grandpa a little on Saturday morning, then we left to drive to Raleigh to visit Jeff, Kathryn, Carson and Sienna. Mom got up really early and woke me up around 6 so she could do another load of laundry before we left. I played with Grandpa and she got everything else ready for our trip. We loaded kitty in the crate and said goodbye around 9:30 and then mommy, daddy and I were on the road around 10.

We hit some traffic driving south on 95 - same place we hit traffic last year, so it took a little longer than expected, but I did really well. When we got through that, I had to go potty, so we stopped and ended up getting lunch. I ate my lunch and took a little nap in the car. Mom did too :) When I woke up, we weren't far from Jeff and Kathryn's house, hooray! We made one more pit stop so I could use the bathroom and mom and dad could get a quick bite to eat. And the best part (or so mom and dad say) is that I stayed dry the entire time! No accidents and only two bathroom stops! Not bad for a 6 hour drive :) I kept myself busy the entire trip and read books, played with my laptop (Thank You Great Aunt Jenny!) and played with my new sticker books that mom got me. Mom and dad didn't even have to turn on my DVD player (which we haven't used at all since we got back from Seattle). I was SO excited to see Carson and Sienna and hopped right out of the car and gave them all lots of hugs. They had so many fun toys for me to play with - now mom and dad have some good ideas for my birthday this year!

Riding the horse - check out my hair!

Sienna's turn! She looks so serious!

And Carson's turn! He jumped SO high on the horse.

We had a yummy, yummy dinner Saturday night - kabobs and fresh peas - I ate a lot! I got to sleep on my cot at Carson and Sienna's house. I didn't go to bed too well (as usual) - mom and dad took bets on when I would actually fall asleep. They put me to bed at 7:30 and mom won the bet with me falling asleep at 8:45. Dad said 9, but he lost...

I didn't wake up until 8:20 on Sunday morning!!! Kathryn made the best pancakes ever, so I ate a really good breakfast. Then daddy and Jeff took us outside to play while mommy and Kathryn got our stuff packed up for the beach.

I got my first driving lesson - a Jeep, just like mommy's! Ok, not *quite* like mommy's, but close... Mommy's working on getting the video uploaded, but she says the file is pretty big and it's taking a while. So you'll have to wait for that one!

We got a snack after all that running around and we all hit the road around 11. Jeff, Kathryn, Carson and Sienna were able to join us at the beach for a few days - I'm so glad it worked out! It was a few hour drive from their house to the beach, so we figured we'd stop for lunch along the way, then hopefully we would take a short nap before we got to the beach. We stopped for lunch, I didn't eat a single thing, then we hopped back in our cars. None of the kids actually fell asleep, but Carson and Sienna had to go to the bathroom, so we stopped about an hour outside of the beach - I finally fell asleep as we were pulling in to the rest stop, so mom and dad just let me sleep. I woke up about a half hour later and cried hysterically for no apparent reason, but I finally calmed down.

We got to the beach around 3 and check-in wasn't until 4 - we decided to stop at the rental office anyway just in case. They gave us the keys and we were all set! It was about 6 miles from the rental office to the condo, so we were almost there. Thankfully, our house this year has an elevator, which made it significantly easier to unload the cars. We're on the third floor and have an ocean front view which is pretty cool. The place has 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms, so there was plenty of space for all of us. We basically dumped our stuff in the house, changed into bathing suits and ran down to the beach! We had a few hours to check things out before dinner time. I wasn't very timid this year and walked right up to the ocean - mom was very pleasantly surprised! She even picked me up and walked way out with me and let the waves hit my back - it was so much fun! Mom and dad were so glad that I wasn't as afraid as last year.

We hadn't gone grocery shopping yet, so we went out to dinner - we stopped and got some pizza, then had some ice cream as a special treat! I thought I wanted mint chocolate chip, but settled on vanilla, my all time favorite. Thank goodness I can have dairy now - it makes vacation a whole different experience for me! After dinner, mom, dad and I went to the grocery store while Carson and Sienna came back to the house to go to bed. My bedtime is a little later than theirs, so it worked out really well. We got enough food for a few days worth of lunches and dinner. Mom and dad put me to bed in their bed that night and moved me to a different room when they went to bed - the fourth bedroom here is a loft, so they didn't want to put me there until everyone had gone to sleep. I ended up waking up in the middle of the night and mom moved to the second bed in that room to keep me company. We woke up pretty early on Monday morning and were ready to go!

Here's the typical beach decor in the house. Background's blurry because of the lens mom had on the camera, but you get the idea.

I ate a good breakfast and then hung out with dad while mom went for a run on the beach. She didn't even take her shoes with her - how silly is that? When she got back, we got our suits on and headed down to the beach. We had so many beach toys that Carson, Sienna and I were able to keep ourselves occupied for a long time! Mommy didn't take a camera that morning, but I think Kathryn got some good photos. When daddy and Jeff came down, they taught me how to make sandcastles out of my toys. I think I made 87 castles with daddy and really enjoyed knocking them down :) Mom and dad both took turns taking me out into the waves and I had a great time again.

Happy kiddos...

We all took pretty good naps on Monday afternoon. I didn't sleep as long as Carson and Sienna, but we all felt so much better after nap. We went back to the pool / beach in the afternoon after we woke up. We took my kite in hopes of flying it, but realized when we got to the beach that we had forgotten the string to fly it at home! So we just played for a while, then daddy came back home to make dinner. He made spaghetti carbonara which was yummy! You could smell it coming down the hallway :) Surprisingly, we all went to bed pretty well on Monday night, even with the late and long naps that we took.

Woke up bright and early again on Tuesday and no one else was awake / here! Carson and Sienna had woken up before me, so Kathryn took them for a walk on the beach. Mom and I had a pretty quiet morning and ate some breakfast until Jeff got up and Kathryn and the kids came back. I ate breakfast again while they ate. Mom headed out to the beach for a run and daddy took me to the kite store to get some string for my kite. I also got a toy boat to play with in the pool - how cool is that? Mom was done with her run and had showered by the time we got home, so we got our suits on and went down to the pool. We played there for a few minutes, then headed down to the beach to fly my kite.

We all got to play with iPods / phones before we went to the beach.

I wasn't quite as enamored with the kite this year as I was last year, but I still had fun.

Jeff and Kathryn had to leave after lunch, so we headed back to the house for some sandwiches, then I had to say goodbye :( We had such a great time with them and can't wait to see them again!!! I took a good nap when they left, then we all went over to the dive shop so daddy could pick up his scuba gear and get ready for his dives on Wednesday morning. I liked seeing all the scuba stuff in the shop and got to see lots of boats outside. Mom tried to take my picture with daddy's dive boat, but the camera lens was pretty foggy - a pretty common problem here since it's cold inside in the air conditioning and very humid outside! Just have to wait it out until the glass clears, but we didn't have enough time...

After daddy got all of his stuff set up on the boat, we went to a restaurant for dinner. It was pretty crowded and the food was delicious. I had fish and chips, mommy had a yummy tuna steak and daddy had pasta with shrimp and scallops (I'm not allowed to have shellfish yet, so I couldn't taste any of daddy's). Mom and dad even got me a yummy strawberry daiquiri (no alcohol, of course) and a piece of chocolate mousse pie - hello sugar rush! Mom had a piece of key lime pie and I liked that too. Once again, it's SO much easier now that I can have dairy.

Daddy went diving on Wednesday, so mom and I were on our own for the morning. Dad had to leave around 5:30 and of course I woke up about 10 minutes after he left. Mom and I were without a car, so we got dressed and took ALL of our stuff down to the beach. I wanted to stop at the pool first, so we did. As soon as we got all set up at the beach, I told mom I had to go potty, so we had to trek all the way back up to the condo. Mom grabbed some Italian Ice's for us to eat when we went back down to the beach. We ate those then went for a walk to find some shells. I was a little apprehensive about the water without holding on to mom's hand, but I eventually wandered in and splashed and kicked the water a little. I really wasn't feeling the beach yesterday, so we ended up going back up to the pool and leaving our chairs, blanket and toys down at the beach. We swam for a bit then came back for lunch and a nap (mom and I *both* napped since I had woken up so early).

We were still asleep when daddy got home. After I woke up, he gave me a few really special presents from his dives! On one of the dives, he picked up two HUGE sand dollars for me! He found them on the bottom of the ocean - how cool is that??? And one of his fellow divers gave him two sharks teeth for me - he found them on his dives that day as well. I'm so excited to have these wonderful things!!! We let daddy nap for a little while because he was so tired from diving, so mom and I played with my bubbles on the deck. Mom tried to go for a run when dad woke up, but the water was too high and there wasn't enough hard sand to run on. So she just brought our chairs and blanket back and we all went down to the pool.

Sand Dollars

Shark Teeth!

I've been working on letting go of mom and dad and have been getting a little braver. This is a good pool for me because I can stand in most of the shallow end. I have a vest that I can wear if I want, but mom and dad want me to swim without it. Sometimes I like to wear it just to float, though.