Vacation 2013

*sad sigh*  Well, another beach vacation has come and gone.  I spent all day yesterday in a depressive funk because I was so sad to be back to reality.  I look forward to vacation every year -- all of my family in one place, together, for a whole week.  At times, it can be a nightmare (all of our craziness, conflicting personalities, and toss in 4 kids prone to tantrums at any given moment) but it's something that I love, love, love to do.  It's, by far, the best 7 days of my year and I thoroughly enjoy my time away.  This year was the same as every other year (awesome, always), except that I had back surgery less than a week before vacation.  It didn't dampen my happy mood, but it definitely wasn't fun to "sit on the sidelines", so to speak, as often as I had to.  I couldn't play beach volleyball with everyone or take Bailey on any rides, and I rode on the boardwalk in a wheel chair.  But I did get to soak up the sun on the beach a few times, watched Bailey have a blast on the rides, ate funnel cake, Johnson's popcorn, and Kessel's ice cream sundaes almost every night, and soaked up every drop of family fun and togetherness that we could pack into 7 days.

I'm still nursing a bit of depression over being back home right now, so I leave you with these pictures from our vacation...not as many as I should have taken, but hey.  At least I took something.

The first day was spent sleeping in...

Gerry spent his vacation smiling and sleeping...

Bath time after a long morning at the beach

Bailey exercised, went on rides just about every night, bought a hermit crab (note the hands-on-her-lips excitement), and got her hair wrapped (while making funny faces in the mirror)...

She was also a TOTAL beach babe this year -- a far cry from the little girl who cried if she set so much as a toe in the sand last year...

The obligatory "climb in this hole and let Pop Pop bury you" shot

Disclaimer:  the pretty girl in this picture (you know...the one with the cute bikini body)?  That's not me.  It's my cousin, Amanda.  

This was the girls "surfing"

It was hard to say goodbye...