The Kanes: Beach Bummin'

"Let's go to the beach, beach. Let's go get a wave."

We have been in Florida for the past week and have had a blast! Cammie, Chris and I were invited to go to Florida with our next door neighbors and good friends, the Yanez crew. We traveled 14 1/2 hours to Indian Shores Beach in Florida. Surprisingly, Cammie did really well during the long drive. She didn't sleep as much as I thought, but watched a little Mickey Mouse and Little Einsteins to help ease the long drive. She also munched on marshmallows and cheese crackers, while staring out the window and talking to mom and dad. When we finally arrived we were so excited to see and show her the beach. Danielle and I headed to the store for a few necessary items (milk, bread, ya know the necessities) while Chris and Joe took the girls to see the beach (Florida as the older girls called it :) for the first time. Cammie absolutely HATED it! :/ She screamed, cried and demanded to be held the entire time. The next consecutive days of our vacation didn't get much better. She would tolerate it as long as she was being held or sitting on someone's lap. If any part of her body touched the sand or got dirty she went crazy, starting to yell and cry. :( So much for enjoying the beach this year. :/ By Thursday she started feeling a little better about the beach and would at least tolerate it in small doses as long as she didn't have to touch the sand. (Just as a mom memory...we had to lay a towel down for her to stand on and play with her sand toys on the beach. She didn't play with sand of course..only the water :). Although the weather was a little iffy (more rain than usual) and Cammie's hatred of the sand we still had a great time! We are so thankful our friends invited us to come along and share their vacation with them! Here are some of the highlights of our trip:

1. Dance Parties: The girls loved taking a break and dancing at any given point during the vacation. It was so, so, so cute to watch the three of them and their dancing abilities! :)

2. Swimming in the Pool: Since Cammie wasn't a beach fan we spent ALOT of time at the pool. Our little water bug loved "simming" with her float on and friends. She learned to kick her feet, lay back and float like a starfish and started getting a little more comfortable jumping in the water. The pool was definitely her spot (a little like her momma :) Here are just a few of the MANY pictures we took of our little water bug.

Big Stuff :)

"Again, again"
(or in Cammie's words "gin, gin" with a hard g sound :)

Starfish!

Playing her favorite game (cups) with her new friend Christopher

kick, kick, kick :)

3. Playing in the Rain: After dinner one night we headed to get ice cream about 1/2 a mile from our condo. We knew rain chances were not in our favor, but we decided to chance it and tried to beat the rain. We headed out with 3 strollers for some yummy dessert, where we unfortunately of course did not beat it. :( The girls were having too much fun playing in the rain, while we were eating our ice cream so we decided to head back even though we were on foot and it was raining pretty good. Cammie loved playing with the water coming out of the down spout and thought mommy running with the stroller back to our place was too funny. :) Silly girl!

4. Baseball Game: Tuesday night we headed to the baseball stadium to watch the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Although none of us are big Devil Rays fans, there was no way Chris would allow us to be so close to a Major League Baseball stadium and not attend. Gotta love that baseball heart :) I was actually happily surprised at how well Cammie did at the baseball game. Our seats were VERY high up, but she really seemed to like the game, songs, chants....everything that goes along with a baseball game. It also helped our cause that they had her favorite snack...popcorn :) Here are a few pictures of the girls at the game.

Taking a break from our seats to let some little legs run :)
Strike a pose!

Sharing C's favorite snack :)
(Love that her mouth is packed full of popcorn :)

5. The Beach: Even though Cammie hated the beach...we did manage to snap a few photos of our attempts to acclimate her to the sand and salt water. Some days were better than others, but our strong-minded girl made up her mind early that she didn't like it and had no plans of spending time there....even if some of her bestest buddies tried to show her how wonderful it could be. Maybe next year :(