VACATION!!!!

The title of this post, in all caps (which means I'm yelling), comes from a cruise director on the cruise James and I took a couple of years ago. The entire cruise, he would randomly yell "VACATION!!!" It was really annoying and the opposite of relaxing, which is what vacation is all about, no?

If I don't get to the beach at least once a year, I get...pissy. I love vacations, or any traveling, really. I love planning it, packing for it and and all the "stresses" that come with travel, like spending money and flying. I. Love. Vacations. I need to go places every once in awhile. For me, travel is not a burden, it's necessary to keep me sane.

Our most recent vacation was to Cape San Blas, Florida. It's my husbands most favorite place on Earth, and he's been wanting to take me there for the last six years. Although at first, he wanted me to go camping in the State Park. Um, I like camping, but for a maximum of two nights, and certainly not when it's hot. So, we rented a house on the beach and we were both happy. :) It was so beautiful there, and so un-crowded, I hesitate to talk too much about it because I don't want everyone to go there and make it crowded. But we literally did almost nothing all week except lay on the beach. The one day we actually did something, we rented a boat and drove to the tip of the Cape, which is only accessible by boat or hiking seven miles from the state park. I can honestly say, it was one of the best days of my life. Have you ever had one of those days where you felt like you were in a movie? That was this day. We found shells that were as big as my hand. We plucked sand dollars straight out of the ocean. We saw a school of dolphins that were swimming along side our boat. We saw a bunch of stingray, and even a sea turtle. It was awesome.

Being on vacation got me thinking about how our vacations will change once we have a baby. Or will they? Do they have to, really? I mean, I realize that there are places we will go once we have kids that we may not have gone before (Disney World), but more than anything, I just want to instill my love of travel in my child. I want to make an effort to go places and do things, regardless of how much (literal) baggage I must carry. For us, travel and vacations are a high priority, and I want it to continue to be that way. I want my children to learn to entertain themselves while on a road trip or an airplane. And I want them to be excited about going places, to relish the journey and the destination.

While on our trip, we did have some fun with photos. I was so relaxed on vacation, that my baby bump grew quite substantially. Here's evidence:


And this is one of the seashells I plucked off the ocean floor: