So I am laying here listening to the torrential downpour outside a little upset that my chances of running this morning are soggy at best (just a little upset), but also recalling how how fortunate we were to just make it through a week at the beach with practically no rain at all. We are home now and it feels good to be unpacked and settled in, but a little bittersweet that our vacation is behind us.

Yesterday was good, we headed out from the house pretty early, I had woken Cailee up to say goodbye to her friends and she was pretty upset to see them go (well it was a combination of, “you just woke me up” and “I’ll never see my friends again”). Its sweet to see her experience the ups and downs of building relationships with others. The only thing that saved her somber mood all day is remembering that at some point (weeks ago) I had told her that her birthday party was going to be after the beach – so the sweet girl talked about her birthday party ALL day. She fully expected it to be last night as soon as we returned home. (That does remind me that I need to get on the ball with the planning because, I too, had been procrastinating til after vacation).

We made a few detours on the way home, just to drag things out a bit longer. We stopped by the Brookgreen Gardens again, walked the grounds a bit more and took a boat ride. Our goal was to get the kids some exercise before the car ride, but the setting is so picturesque and the sun hadn’t really come out in full force yet, so we really enjoyed ourselves. Then we drove about halfway to Wilmington and stopped for a late lunch. I had bought Cailee some binoculars (although she insists they are a telescope) at the Gardens and she used them to watch the boats go by on the water. Just as we were leaving we saw a wedding, Cailee was excited to see a real live “royal princess”, as she called the bride (as soon as we got home, she put her crown on her head, still talking of the “princess”).

Yes, this is Connor crawling under the seats on the boat ride. Luckily, everyone was tolerant of the little kid on the boat who was just wandering around, trying to make friends. Often, he would go up to the boat guide and just stand right at his feet staring up at him, interrupting the history lesson the other patrons were trying to pay attention to.