Personal || 2017 Vacation || Anna Maria Island

This past week has been full of adventure. Traveling from Knoxville to Anna Maria Island with a 3 month old is an adventure all by itself. But then add in a week in a new house, sleeping in 3 different beds, having a whole bunch of new people and voices around all the time, feeling sand for the first time, wearing a hat and sunglasses a lot, not getting baths in his regular bathtub, and swimming in a pool… makes for a very overstimulated baby. But I am so thankful that he has handled it like a champ. I mean really, praise God for this sweet tempered child of mine.

I remember when pre-baby Amanda used to look at other moms missing out on so much while they sat with their babies and everyone else had fun. I used to think, gosh, it must SUCK to have kids… you can’t do anything. But can I tell you how perfectly happy I am to be sitting inside while everyone else goes out to the beach? Something changes ya’ll. I have always been a sit-in-a-beach-chair-feet-in-the-water-reading-a-book kind of beach-er. That was always the whole purpose of going to the beach. But this vacation I’ve become a sit-on-the-couch-while-my-baby-naps-reading-a-book kind of beach-er and I’m perfectly okay with it. It’s not torture like what I used to think when I looked into this window. You know what else doesn’t bother me that used to completely gross me out? Wiping his drool with my finger and rubbing it on my pants, catching his spit up in my hand so it doesn’t get on his cute outfit, getting a little poop on my finger when I change a diaper, getting a little poop on my clothes when his diaper explodes (okay – the last two still gross me out slightly)… and really so much more. That stuff totally made me squirm and I would think how am I ever going to be a mom – it’s so disgusting but something changes. It’s so incredible how God wires us and how our wires get unplugged and re-wired every now and then. Things that are so important suddenly become pointless and things that are pointless become the very most important.

And I realize that my short little sentence about how much it doesn’t suck to vacation with a baby has turned into an entire paragraph… so now let me actually share some stories from our trip!

1. The one that might be the most important to me is that my mother-n-law Jill slept with little Gray for two nights this week and let me sleep all night long… whaaaaaat???? best gift ever!
2. One of my sister-n-laws and her husband celebrated their one year anniversary while we were here. So during their celebration, they got back into their wedding attire and let me photograph them! I LOOOOOOVE taking pictures on the beach. Like holy moly. It’s so pretty. I had looked into buying a bridal bouquet from a local florist down here but he wanted $250. Um. I’ll pass. So instead, we got some random flowers from publix and I threw together a bouquet myself. Now to all my florist friends that are reading this, you are probably cringing at this thought just like how I cringe when people purchase prints from walmart, but it simply was not an option to spend $250 on one bouquet. I do have to say though, I was pretty pleased with how my little bouquet turned out! It definitely got the job done!
3. It has been very interesting feeding Grayson with my father-n-law and brother-n-law around. I obviously don’t want to just be flashing my boobs to them, and it’s incredibly hot to wear a cover over both of us but I also didn’t want to go into solitude for 30 minutes every three hours either. We’ve somehow made it work though and it’s been great.
4. I forgot two major articles of clothing at home… my bathing suit bottoms that go with my only two piece and the cutest bathing suit I own that I can wear postpartum and a cardigan to go over my outfit that I’m wearing for our family pictures on the beach. I have a tank top and I HATE my arms right now (says almost every girl I know) so we’ll see how these pictures turn out :-(.
5. Dustin and I have gotten some really great alone time since we’ve been here. From a little date breakfast, to some walks and bike rides, to some sand dollar finding. I’m so thankful for this sweet family that is more than willing to watch Grayson for us!
6. I have gotten to take some really awesome pictures of this whole entire family that I love so much. Some artsy ones, some family ones, some wedding ones, some Grayson ones… I love that I have a job that I can do while I’m on vacation and not even be a bit mad about it :-).

It’s so true that vacationing with a baby isn’t as relaxing as a traditional vacation. There’s still little sleep to be had, there’s still a schedule to stick to, there’s a lot of work to get ready for the sun when you can only enjoy it for about 15-20 minutes… but even with all that, his sweet smiles and cackles make this the best beach trip yet.

Family Pictures

Styled Wedding Session

Artsy Model Shoot

Grayson’s 3 Month Pictures

Random Cell Phone Pictures

Not really sure why it turned all the verticle pictures sideways- so that’s annoying. But there’s no way for me to fix them on my lap top so… sorry bout that.