Vacations are...different

We, the Holland family, just completed our very first family of four vacation! 
And boy was it a doooooozy!!!

The four of us headed to Myrtle Beach South Cack-a-lak (as Tim calls it) last Thursday. 
We were blessed to have a free stay at an oceanfront hotel courtesy of Tim's job. 
We were all super excited about what the vacation would be like...but Mommy anxiety took over a little bit for me because I had no idea how my little lover-of-routine baby would handle things.

It started off fine.  We woke the kids up at 5am and took off!  They didn't say anything to each other when we very sleepily put them in their car seats...but they managed an adorable wave to each other...priceless!

A six hour trip only took us eight hours...which I thought was pretty good.

So far so good...

The hotel was amazing.  Right on the beach, and a water park to add to the fun! 

The first night was rough.
We decided against bringing the pak-n-play for Graham because it just takes up too much room!  I don't know why I felt sand toys and an Elmo boom box were more important than my sons sleeping quarters...but I did.  However my reasoning behind it was the hotel would have a crib that we could use...so there!
I didn't know that this "crib" would be more like a metal cage for a small chihuahua!  When we put Graham in it and said goodnight he looked at me and said "yea right" in 17-month old talk. 
So a new adventure of sleeping in a big bed commenced.
We put Lilly and Graham in the same bed that night and had our fingers crossed that it would work.  I was too nervous to sleep in the other room so I slept in the same room with them. 
And thank goodness I did!
Who knew that Graham was an acrobatic sleeper! 
I would hear him stir and I would sit up from my dead sleep to see what was going on.  Then I would see him stand up in his sleep and lunge forward.  Then he would sleep in that position for a while and do it all over again. 
(Now it all makes sense!  When I hear that loud thud at night at home it is probably my son banging his head on the side of his crib practicing his sleep aerobics!)
Twice I caught him diving off the side of the bed.  Thankfully we made it through the night.

The next day was better.  Once Graham learned that the sand was not all bad and the water slides were not out to get him...he had a blast!  It was great watching my babies have fun.
Chalk this one up for a good day!
That night was another adventure.
Tim got food poisoning!  He spent the evening puking in our hotel room.
So night number two was spent in the kid room again.  This time with Graham sleeping on the floor.

Day number three was even better.  The sand monster never came out and Graham even took a nap on the beach!  That night I had my fingers crossed that just maybe I would get to spend the evening with my husband.
Thankfully we did have about half an hour on the balcony before we both passed out from sheer exhaustion from the trip.  I decided I might as well sleep in my usual spot because Graham kept waking up scared since he was in a new place.
All-in-all it was a trip worth blogging about.  We kept laughing at how our life is so different now and how much we love it.  We kept talking about how we will look back at this vacation and remember how hard it was, but how great it was.  We kept saying that this season in our life will pass so quickly, and how much we will miss it when it is gone.
And we kept saying that next time we are bringing the Grandparents!!!