McGowan Family Beach Trip

Chris' family planned a beach vacation for the summer. They rented the house last fall... before Nov. 7...before Cohen's 20 week ultrasound. They got a house with an extra bedroom so that Cort and Cohen wouldn't both be in our room in case Cohen was still waking up at night. The entire last half of my pregnancy I dreaded the beach trip. We would try to talk about it as being a good thing - a few month's after Cohen's birth we would get an escape..go to the beach... enjoy being there with Cort. I hated thinking about it because all I could think about was the extra room. That we probably wouldn't need it and there it would be. Cort might still sleep in it but we wouldn't have a 4 month old baby in our room making little noises, crying out to be fed....

I can honestly say I have never been so thrilled to have to sleep in the same room with my child!!! We packed up all 4 of us and headed to the beach for a week with Chris' family( parents, sisters and there husbands and kids). I can't believe we got in all in the car with even a little room to spare.

Cort LOVED the beach. I really think he would have stayed on it all day. Our house was very close to the beach so that made it easy coming and going - especially with Cohen. Cohen handled the beach pretty well and would even take a few naps in his little tent while we played with Cort. Chris and I even got away one night to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary.

The only down side of the trip was that the beach house got struck by lightening and we were with out air condition for several days. There was a master suite upstairs that still had air so we were able to let Cohen nap in the cool air and for Cort to sleep in the little office at the bottom of the stairs that stayed pretty cool. We actually managed pretty well considering. The day before the air got fixed was def. the worst - the refrigerator couldn't even keep up with how hot it was - the milk actually spoiled!!

Cohen's first peek at the beach....


Cort enjoying some Grandmommie time...


The beach was really muddy when the tide would go in. Cort loved running and playing in it!


Cort loved digging holes in the beach and letting them fill up with water. We would find lots of tiny little hermit crabs and he thought that was great.


Cousin Nicolas on the beach

Grandmommie and G-pop got cort a wagon of sand toys and he enjoyed pulling it back and forth to the beach

More of Cohen chilling or sleeping on the beach...


The weather was really great ( other than the storm that knocked our air out!) I love sitting on the porch in the evenings at the beach. Our beach house had a good grass yard and everyone enjoyed playing croquet. Nicolas and Cort loved running around - they were too cute dancing around the yard and imitating each other.

Mommy getting some time with our boys on the porch....


Daddy cuddling with his boys:


For my taste, the water was great. I am not a huge ocean fan even though I love the beach. The water was very calm - not a ton of waves ( the rest of the fam wasn't as thrilled about this as I was) Cort is a little unsure of the water too so it was good for him. The first day or so he spent most of his time in the sand but as the week went on he warmed up and enjoyed the water. He would jump the waves and even let Chris or I take him out a little bit. I didn't get a lot of great pictures trying to balance two at the beach but oh well.
You may remember the boat Chris got for his birthday and how Cort did not particularly enjoy trying it out so you can imagine my surprise when Cort fearlessly joined Chris in the boat in the ocean.






Nicolas and Cort crabbing with their dad's...


Gotta have cars even on the beach...


We were joined by elephants for breakfast every morning on the porch....

Spotting Dolphins...


Mommy and Daddy's night out...

Many thanks to Chris' parents for so graciously inviting us all to the beach for a week. It was great!!!