We’ve Been Pretty Busy…

  The weekend of August 8th, mom came up to Atlanta and met me at my hospital to relay Samuel for the weekend.  It would have ordinarily been a pretty strange place to meet except that  the Women’s Center was unveiling the new black and white photos of all the babies of the staff in Labor and Delivery. They had a little party with cake and refreshments, and the photographer was there. Everyone got to walk around the unit and see the beautiful pictures of all the babies up on the walls, including Samuel’s! I wish I had digital copies that didn’t have her name all over it, but oh well.  This second picture is the other pose I ordered but it’s not hanging up at the hospital (though it should be!). 

Afterward, Samuel rode back to the lake with mom and spent the weekend while Daniel and I frantically packed the truck to head out of town.  We were running late that morning, but luckily so was everyone else.  We were heading up to Tennessee to go camping and rafting for another great Accenture outing.  Daniel’s company (actually their client) sponsored them a sort of “group bonding” trip for some of the employees and their families.

Daniel, being the outdoorsman that he is, took the reigns on planning and organizing, so we ended up packing A LOT of our camping equipment and several tents for other people, some of whom had never slept outside before – pretty fun. We made camp that night and had a great dinner of silver turtles (hobos) and smores.

We rafted most of the next day on the Ocoee river, which was awesome, and camped again that night.  Daniel made a low country boil for everyone and we all went to bed stuffed.

Sunday, we packed up and headed home before noon.   Mom and Mema made the trip up to Atlanta with Samuel and hung out for an hour or so to help us out.  During that time, Daniel and I had to unpack the camping stuff, wash clothes, and repack for a week at the beach!  It was great having mom there to help watch Samuel for us so that we could try to leave before dark.

We left that night when Samuel was ready for bed so that he would sleep the whole 5+ hour drive down there.  That ended up putting us in Gulf Shores around 2am.  Daniel’s mom and grandparents were already down there and his mom had even set up Samuel’s Pack-N-Play crib for us when we got there. Marble made the trek with us, too.  She had a pretty great time, I’d say…

We had such a great vacation at the beach and it was a nice treat to have some of Daniel’s family down there with us. They watched Samuel for us a little so that we could go down to the beach at night or go out to dinner and Daniel’s mom took a lot of great pictures, too.  There were some incredible storms while we were there, too. They came on quick and didn’t last too long, but umbrellas, tents, and chairs were blowing all over the beach at one point.  It was quite a site from our balcony. You can see the storm clouds in the picture !

Grumps and Grandmother (who now wants Samuel to call her Nanau – not sure how to spell it?) left after a few days and Daniel’s aunt Carol came down for the end of the week. His cousins Waverley and Melody (Carol’s younger son) and little Waverley were actually vacationing in Gulf Shores at the same time, and we were able to have dinner with them one night. We found out a few weeks ago that Melody is pregnant again – she looked great, just 12 weeks along I think – and we got to meet little Waverley for the first time.

One of the last days we were there, Daniel took Samuel out to the beach to take some photos by the sea oats and fence.  They turned out really great in my opinion.

The drive home put us in really late and Monday was tough on both of us, but we had great vacation and it was totally worth it.  Can’t wait to get back down there at the end of September! Yay!