And…we’re back!

If you’ve been wondering where we’ve been, we headed to the beach for a looooong and delightful vacation.  We started last Thursday and flew to Amelia Island (yep, you guessed it…my namesake) where my father and his family grew up.  We stayed with my aunt and uncle Mike and Leisha, and got to see pretty much all of my dad’s family.  I can’t believe that this is true, but it had been 10 years or more since I had seen a lot of this side of my family, so it was really special to bring both Drew and Asher home to a place that I spent many a summer as a child.  We gathered to celebrate my Grandfather’s 89th birthday and got all of the cousins together.  On Saturday we jumped into a car and drove the six hours from Amelia Island to Perdido Key, Florida to meet up with Drew’s mom Jo Ellen, his sister Ashley and her family, and Drew’s younger brother Neal.  We take this trip every year, and I have to say that we are really hitting our stride.  This year we managed to get in a minimum of 12 hours of sleep every day, we spent our time almost exclusively on the beach, by the pool or curled up in the condo, eating all of our meals in and heading to bed with the rising of the moon.  We slept better than we sleep at home (Asher had his own “room” in the walk-in closet in our room and that seemed to suit him just fine) and just generally loved having so much relaxing time as a family.  Jo Ellen had the inspired idea to bring baby pools for the kids, so we filled them every day and sat under the tent on the beach with Asher splashing around in his own private (and safer) ocean.  He was content to sit and splash for quite a long time, safe from sun and waves, but getting to take in his first week at the beach with a big sandy smile.  There are a lot of pictures and videos from the trip, but I’ve chosen a few of my favorites to share and am happy now to be back home with a headfull of happy memories from a wonderful week away.

Here are some pictures from the trip to Fernandina (Amelia Island).  A special note to the pitcture of me and Asher with my father and grandfather, his great grandfather.

And some pics from our time in Perdido Key: (The girls are our nieces, Charlotte, on the left and Caroline, on the right)