Topsail Island

Last week my family took our annual beach vacation. This year we stayed at Topsail Island and we had a blast! It was Randal Jean's first family vacation as well as the dogs first time joining us on vacation. Having a 5 month old and 2 big dogs certainly meant a lot more work while on vacation but it was worth it to have all my family there :)

Packing for our first vacation was ridiculous!!!! I think we will need a U-haul in the future (seriously, I'm not kidding). Traveling with the dogs means we lose the back of the suburban so we had to take my car as well. Randal Jean might be small but she has a lot of stuff. Some of the larger items that seemed to fill up our vehicles included: diaper pail, 2 large laundry bags of cloth diapers, high chair, exersaucer, pack and play, and jogging stroller. I think just Randal's filled the interior of the suburban.

Once the stress of packing and unpacking was over I was ready to relax and enjoy a full week (away from work!) with my family. The house we stayed in this year was on the canal so our house had a dock, but it was also a very short walk to the beach. I loved being on the canal and hope we can go back to the same place (or somewhere similar) next year.

Randal is still a bit too young to spend large amounts of time in the sun due to risk of overheating and sunburn...even though she was slathered in SPF 50 every time we went out. We didn't get to spend too much time outside but we made the most of the time we did have. Early in the day we would take Randal and the dogs out on the john boat to a little island and let the dogs run free and swim. I loved watching the dogs get to run free and frolic in the water, plus Randal gets a kick out of watching them too:) Most days we would have to scope out an island that no one had claimed as we wanted the dogs to have free range, but on Thursday we discovered our own temporary private island! We set off on Thursday a little bit later than the other days so the tide was getting really low and as we were scoping out a place to anchor the boat we found an island that had just started to form. The island was shaped like a donut with clear shallow water in the middle. This was my favorite time at the beach. It was just one of those times that I thought to myself "this is the life." I had my baby, my husband, my dogs....life was great (and Riley and Kacie were there too). I was so bummed that we didn't discover this temporary island until Thursday as Matt had to leave the vacation a day early :( Oh well, now we know for next year. We also took Randal to the ocean, but we didn't spend too much time there. She wasn't a big fan of the waves crashing near her. I hope this will be one of the differences we will see next year. Other than her distaste for crashing waves she didn't seem to mind the ocean water (without waves in the canal or on the islands) too much and the sand didn't bother her either.

Being away from the house meant Randal was away from her normal environment so we had to be creative in getting her to nap....napping for Randal is non-negotiable! My very pleasant child can be far from pleasant if she doesn't get enough sleep. After not napping well the first day and the effects of less sleep showing on day two I decided something must be done! So in to her car seat and in to the dark bathroom with the fan running Randal went. Think what you will of my parenting but I didn't do this every nap and we don't do it at the house. It was what got Randal to sleep and made her happy so if nothing else I am glad that I thought to do this and highly recommend this trick to other traveling parents.

Oh what else to share?!?! It was a Till family vacation so there was lots of good food cooked by Chef Randy and lots of dominoes played, but really I think I've rambled enough but I'll close with saying this was the best family vacation yet because I finally had my own child to share it with. Watching Randal experience new things is just the most awesome indescribable feeling.

Below are some pics from our vacation...Enjoy!