First Vacation (and First Wedding)

We recently took our much-awaited first vacation as a family of four. Really we hadn't done what we consider a "big" vacation since I was first pregnant with Lauren, so we skipped over vacation as a family of three, mostly. Everyone told us before we left that it was a "trip," not a "vacation," since we were taking our kids. I thought that was pretty Debbie Downer of them, but then the morning that we left for St. Thomas both kids woke up sick. Like really sick. Like we probably would have taken them to urgent care sick. But did we take them to urgent care? No. Mama and Dada needed a vacation. Off to the airport we went (sorry everyone on our flight who was exposed to croup). There would be a doctor in the house in St. Thomas, after all. As a result however, Jack, during most of the trip, did not look like this:

Or this:

But more like this:

And this:

Mostly the former. Sigh. But we made the best of it, because if we were going to be home with two sick kids anyway, why not be "home" with two sick kids in St. Thomas? Because it looked like this:

And this (both shot from the patio of our villa):

And, every once in awhile, Jack managed to look like this:

And once both kids managed to look, at the same time, like this:

Most importantly, we got to spend time with family:

Witness a very important wedding:

And see a moon like this:

We were in St. Thomas for seven days, and we made it to the beach four or five of those days. We stayed at a villa with the new joint families all together (Arie and my clan on Dad's side, and Terry's three kids with significant others and two of her five grandchildren on the other side). It was a great opportunity for everyone to hang out and get to know each other. We even had a celebrity chef (he has a show on the Cooking Channel) for the wedding reception. AND, the day after Dad and Terry's wedding we found out that our family had expanded by one, when Matt and Jo announced the arrival of my first nephew Greyson!

Jack didn't like the ocean water at first, it was just a touch cold (which was refreshing, the air was warm, but he's used to bath water) and he cried a little. By the end he loved it and I could motor him around and he'd kick his little legs. My good little sleeper regressed quite a bit because he was so congested and had a bad cough (did I mention that one of his bottom teeth also started to pop through on this trip?), so most nights he ended up in bed with me and Sean, because honestly I couldn't handle walking around with him anymore (he required carrying and walking all throughout the day). Despite the sickness and sleeplessness, we had a great vacation. Luckily Sean and I have a kids-less vacation coming up next week. I think we'll plan a follow-up recuperative adults vacation after family vacation like this more often.