Awwww vacation. Such a beautiful word. I love traveling, experiencing new things, relaxing, and having the freedom to spend time with my family outside of our normal constrains of work. (For me consisting currently of worrying about housework and B.)
When I graduated college Aaron's rent's gave us (I know, I have such wonderful in-laws) vacation, our choice of resort to exchange for their time share. Since I was pregnant when I received this wonderful gift, and we both wanted to go skiing, we thought we'd wait until the baby arrived and take a 2nd honeymoon to Colorado :) Fast forward about 9 months from that decision and it was January of 2009 and it was time for us to decide where we were going to go by the end of October. Well, there's no guarantee for snow in October in Colorado, so we explored other skiing options, again, no guarantees that early in the season. So we started thinking beach (my fave of faves), and we started looking gulf area (think Orange Beach, AL), to no avail. All we could find in the way of resorts, well, wasn't exactly our idea of a good resort vacation. So, after days upon days of looking we finally decided to find the best rated resort that was an even exchange, which brought us to Orlando.
*Sigh* - Okay, now that I've explained what got us there... As time moved on in B's little life our "2nd honeymoon" for me began to look grim. Not knowing whether we'd have other children or not, and already spending a week away from B in July, I was soooooo very concerned I'd miss some of his "first" things while we were gone. Not to mention we'll have to leave him for four days again in November... and frankly, I didn't have a child so I could drop him off for two or three weeks a year before the age of one. So, our 2nd honeymoon became a family vacation with my in-laws, who graciously agreed to go to watch B so Aaron and I could have "our" time and time with him.
And it all worked out wonderfully! (Minus Aaron's episode with gout -- yeah, I'm going to stop traveling with people, it seems like everywhere I end up someone else ends up diagnosed with a lifelong ailment of some sort.) Anyway, Aaron and I got to golf 3 times (ok, I golfed twice and cadied once - and that was on an Arnold Palmer course), hit the driving range, have a great dinner out at House of Blues, explore the pools, hit downtown Disney (with and without B), and soak up some sun. As a family we had the opportunity to do the pool thing (wait until you see the pictures... B LOVES the water!), go to the ocean (only my favorite place ever), take B up in the "hot air" balloon at Downtown Disney, and enjoy several nice meals together. We really had a great time!
As far as missing any "firsts" with Bryton, there is the obvious things... he wouldn't have had his first plane ride (in which he did GREAT both times), train ride (actually a monorail experience at the airport), ride on a boat (downtown disney), balloon ride (downtown disney), experience on the golf course (see facebook pics), trip to the ocean, Disney adventure, trips down the lazy river, etc. BUT, I would have also missed the first real crawling, first real pulling up with no help on everything, first clapping, fake laughing, peek-a-boo (on his own), clapping to Patty Cake (on his own - not very well, but he at least has the idea), and little indian sounds (think sound coming out of your mouth and hand hitting it) with his hands and anything else he could get his hands on, sitting up in the crib, and standing up in the crib. One week folks, one week. I swear had I got home I would have never known he was my kid. When we left town B's crib was still on the top position... and we had no reason to move it down. The FIRST thing we did when we got home, moved the crib bed down. Praise God we took him. I'm afraid I would have had a very hard time enjoying myself knowing all he was doing without momma seeing it :(
I never thought I'd say that vacation changes everything, but this one did, my son went a baby and came back a little boy, I'm afraid. Very mobile, into everything... life at the Gregg household has changed forever... for the better, but another large adjustment. Again, parents, take lots and lots of pictures, babies don't stay babies long.
-a
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