Back to Reality

Warning - major picture overload!

It's so not fair that vacations can fly by so fast! We were in Jacksonville, Florida for 5 days to visit my grandparents and when it was time to leave to come back home it seemed like we'd just gotten there. It was a lot of fun though. I had been super anxious about flying with a 4 1/2 month old baby from Salt Lake City to Jacksonville (about 5 or 6 hours of flying time) - I was so worried Mira would scream the whole time and everybody on the plane would hate us. I don't know why I worry though, every time I've been concerned about something it's turned out to be just fine - maybe a message from the universe to chill out and relax? Who knows. Anyway, Mira did great. We took a red eye flight down, she slept the whole way from SLC to Atlanta and woke up as the flight from Atlanta to Jacksonville was getting ready to leave. She played and amused herself and hardly made a peep. What a good baby!

Getting packed up to go.

My grandparents were head over heels excited to meet Mira! It's been many years since they've had a baby to play with. Mark and I made the trip down last summer when I was about 12 weeks pregnant and I was so sick and exhausted we missed out on doing lots of things. So the first day we were down there Mark and I drove down to St. Augustine to go to a few places I couldn't manage last year and revisit some places we really enjoyed. We went to the local winery (they had some really good wines, too bad we can't get more bottles shipped to us), walked around the shopping district, and went to our favorite restaurant, the Santa Maria. It's literally over the water so you have a great view of the harbor. You can open these trap doors and feed bread scraps to the fish and birds outside, you can watch dolphins jumping around in the water - not to mention the seafood is fantastic! I wish there was such a thing as fresh seafood in Utah. Our lunch was blackened alligator tail skewers, clam chowder, and various fried seafood.

At the Santa Maria Restaurant.

A pirate ship outside our table at the restaurant.

Watching the dolphins.

We also walked around the city a little - but not too much because it was in the 90s with humidity at something like 89%. It really does feel hotter with that much humidity! We walked to the Castillo de San Marcos, the big fort. Mira slept through that part but we got some good pictures to show her when she gets older. We also got to see them do a reenactment where they shot a cannon off the side of the fort. That was really cool.

The Castillo with St. Augustine in the background.

Southwest corner of the fort.

Of course you don't make a trip out to Florida without going to the beach, especially since my grandparents live just a 10 or 15 minute drive away from the ocean.

Getting dressed for the beach.

At Jacksonville Beach.

First time in the Atlantic Ocean!

This is how she felt about it.

We tried a few more times to dip her feet in the water and she screamed every time. Oh well, we tried. Maybe when she's a little older she'll like it more.

Relaxing with Dad.

With Paw Paw.

With Maw Maw.

Me, Mark, Maw Maw, Paw Paw, & Mira

Four generations!

It was a great trip! I'm just sorry it was over so fast. I guess it's time to start planning the next one, since we've established that Mira is a really good traveler.

Mira just keeps changing every day! I'm going to have trouble keeping her occupied now because she got used to always being the center of attention the last few days. She's figured out that it's super fun if she purposefully drops a toy so that someone will pick it up and give it back to her. I'm thinking that I'll probably get her started on solids in the next few days. I know it goes against what we preach at work but she's been acting ready for over a month now and she's starting to get angry when she's around food and we don't let her try any. And I caught Mark giving her tastes of whipped cream and ice cream - my first instinct was to be pissed but she loved it and nothing bad has happened so why keep putting it off at this point? Plus, I realized I'm ready to have some more independence - it's so hard to get anything accomplished when you have to drop everything to feed your baby every 2 hours, and you're the only one who can do it. And - she's definitely teething now. I've been wondering for a little while but you can see the little white nubs on her bottom gum and you can even feel a sharp little edge.

She might be teething but she's still happy!

Here's a fun video of her. Remind me not to buy toys anymore, just things that make crinkling noises. She obviously enjoys this but she had a meltdown a couple minutes later because she got really frustrated - presumably because she couldn't fit the whole bag in her mouth. (Of course she could just be more short-tempered than normal because of the teething.)