Isle of Palms Memories

So Will and I have been back to our normal activities (walking the dog, going to the park, swimming, errands, etc) for over a week now, but I wanted to record a few more memories from our beach vacation before I forget them.

Will and I spent the last week of June with my family in Isle of Palms, SC.  My parents, Amy, Michael and Kyle were all there.  My grandparents also came for three nights.  Our house was awesome and was just across the street from the beach.  Will slept great all week in a pack-in-play in the closet in my room.  Taking a very busy toddler on vacation is lots of fun, but not very relaxing.  By lunch time we had usually already completed three or four active, outdoor activities.  Here is what our typical schedule was like at the beach:

•  7am-8am: Get up, eat breakfast on the patio, play inside
• 8-9:30am: Get dressed, walk on the beach with my mom and Will in the stroller
• 9:30-12:00: Swimming in the pool, playing on the beach for 45 minutes or so, more swimming in the pool
• 12:00-1:00- Lunch
• 1:00-3:30- Will naps, I enjoy quiet by the pool
• 3:30-5:30- Went the beach some afternoons before swimming, other afternoons we just swam more in the pool!
• 5:30-6:30 Bathtime for Will (getting straight into the tub made him forget about being upset that swimming was over), get dressed for dinner
• 6:30-8:30- Dinner time!  Two nights we went out to dinner nights and other the nights we cooked at the house.  If we went out to eat Will usually went to bed right after we got back.  Other nights we had more time to play after dinner and/or went for a bike ride.

Will's absolute favorite thing about the trip was swimming.  He wanted to get in the pool as soon as he woke up at 7am and once he was in the pool he wanted to swim, and swim, and swim some more.  His favorite things in the pool were rolling off rafts, jumping off the side, swimming back and forth between two people, and playing on the steps.

Will liked the beach too, but he knew the way back to the pool and after he was bored with the beach he would try to head in the that direction.  His favorite things at the beach were sitting in holes that other people dug for him, rolling around in the tide pools, and checking out other kids' toys.  I took him out farther into the ocean one day and he liked it, but he wanted to swim under water.  We were out past where the waves were breaking and this wouldn't have been a problem if he understood he had to close his eyes.  He couldn't figure out that his eyes were burning because of the salt water.  So we stuck to swimming in the pool where he could be underwater with his eyes open.

We don't have bikes at home so Will also enjoyed riding on the seat behind my mom on her bike (I decided biking while pregnant was enough without a 28 lb toddler sitting behind me).   One cloudy morning we took a long bike ride to the park and let Will play for a while.  Will especially liked the bike rides we took after dinner, probably because he was starting to get tired and liked just relaxing.

On Tuesday morning the weather was cool and rainy so my mom and I took Will to the South Carolina Aquarium. Will's favorite thing there was riding up the escalator.  They also had a few really good areas for toddlers to play in.  And, of course, he did look at some fish briefly.

Since, as usual, my mom, my sister, and I took tons of pictures (mostly of Will) I created a slideshow of the highlights of the trip.

Isle of Palms 2012 from Sarabeth P on Vimeo.