We're Baaaack

I will have more pictures soon, but I wanted to post about our vacation. We had such a great time last week in Hilton Head. The weather could've cooperated a little more (thank you SubTropical Storm Andrea), but the villa where we stayed was amazing and Friday's weather was perfect.

Haleigh was a great traveller the first day driving, but woke up with a sour stomach the 2nd day and was pretty miserable until we arrived at the beach. Then she didn't want anything to do with the sand or the water, or really anything at all until it was her own idea. Her excitement over the whole trip caused her to have some stomach issues (read: the worst diapers I've ever dealt with), and she has apparently realized that she is two years old (meaning she now screams incessantly for what she wants). But at least she slept great, so though I was stuck at the condo with her most of the week, I was able to sneak out and enjoy some sun on the balcony overlooking the pool and beach.

Friday the storm moved south so we had perfect sunny weather to enjoy the pool and beach. Another little girl was in the baby pool, finally convincing Haleigh to get in and have fun. Once we conquered that, we all walked down to the beach and she played with sand for a bit with me on the towels. My parents returned from playing in the surf and told me to just start walking down that way; Haleigh would follow me. Sure enough, after a week of hating the sand and the shells and everything about the beach, she walked barefoot in the sand all the way down to the tidal pool. I took her out into the surf with me where she would eagerly watch the waves and say, "Here comes another one!" so I'd jump as it hit us and she'd just squeal and laugh because it was so fun.

Soon I couldn't carry her anymore, so she sat on my lap in the warm water of a tidal pool for a good 20 minutes, just talking about the sand and the shells we could see. She fell in love with some hermit crabs in a little shop in town so she's convinced that all shells have "a crab in it."

Saturday we ended up blowing right past our motel room reserved in Virginia, choosing to not stop for the night and driving straight through to get home. Haleigh handled the ride home extremely well, and we only had to watch Monsters Inc. and Happy Feet once each.

We relaxed Sunday, then went grocery shopping and to the park, where I was reminded again that I do in fact have a 2 year old. It literally took me 10 minutes to get her back into her carseat once my 6.5 month pregnant self chased her down off the playground equipment. She screamed the whole drive home, all the way up to the apartment, and all through her bath.

As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote:
There was a little girl
And she had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead,
When she was good, She was very, very good
And when she was bad she was horrid.