Our First Family Vacation

Last month we embarked on our very first family vacation, and our very first trip to the Caribbean. Wowza is all I have to say! This photo was from our first morning in Turks & Caicos. We were eating breakfast, trying to get the lay of the land and figuring out what to do for the day when Zoe and Elmo walked right by our table on a "walk about." Lillie spotted them first and made sure she got my attention quickly so we could go say hello to them. It was right then that we knew this was going to be one vacation to remember!

Lillie fell in love with Camp Sesame, the daycare with loads of fun things to do, and different events each day. From cooking with Cookie Monster to storytime with Elmo, she was in heaven. And even though Quinn won't remember much from his experience there, I think the wonderful ladies who cared for him will remember him! His giggles and big smiles won over the hearts of many of them, and he had a "girlfriend" by the time he left. One night, Conor and I decided to have a date and have dinner on our own so we dropped off the kids at Camp and when we returned to pick them up, Lillie promptly said, "no, you leave...bye Mom and Dad." Hey, we're on vacation, right?! So we took Quinn back to the room to put him to bed and when I went back to pick up Lillie, this is what she looked like! Lillie had talked a nice lady, Barbaralynn, into pulling out the face paints and making her into a cat. (She could have spent 24 hours there if they'd been open and we let her.)

This trip was full of firsts. First time to the Caribbean, first time to get passports for the kids, their first time out of the country, Quinn's first time to see the ocean and sand, Lillie's first time down a water slide, and Quinn's first time in a pool (and it was heated!)

There were something like 5 pools and 16 restaurants at the resort...awesome. The food was great, every type of cuisine you could want...there was even a Japanese steak house. Lillie was the star of our table, interacting and being super cute with our chef. The weather was great. Even though we had a few days of rain and clouds, we could have cared less - we still had fun. I guess we had another first: our first family portrait. It was windy, close to dinner-time, and Lillie refused to nap that day. Don't judge.

We saw some big fish, and a few tiny ones. We saw a lot of waves, sand castles and spent a lot of time burying each other in the sand. It was hard to pack up our things and come home, so for now we'll keep reliving our trip by looking at our pictures and look forward to going back again.