Live, on location...

Posting this from beautiful Perdido Key, FL tonight! Ellie's first real road trip went great. We left at 3:00 AM this morning (after a miserable night's sleep...maybe 3 hours for me). Ellie was wired and I was beginning to think our plan for leaving early so she would sleep most of the way was pretty dumb. But as we crossed the state line into Alabama I looked back to show her the rocket (if you've seen it, you'll remember it) and her eyes were REALLY heavy. By the time we got to the rocket, she was out. She slept until we woke her up several hours later in Montgomery. The rest of the way she was a little angel. It's amazing how a Mickey Mouse DVD will go a long way to satisfying a child. How did my parents and grandparents' generation deal with road trips without DVDs?

In any event, it was a very easy trip down. About 8 hours drive time, but it was a breeze. We arrived around 12:30 PM and were able to check right in. Just in time for Ellie's nap. We had to temper our excitement to see the beach for a little while until she slept.

We took her down to the beach this afternoon and it was really something else. She is very picky about being dirty...hates crumbs on her hands, etc. So we figured sand on her feet would drive her into a fit. She loved it! The whole time we walked down there she was saying "beach!" and "ocean!" and "water!" over and over again. Once she put her feet into the water and another wave came in, she got a little freaked out but she turned it into a game to chase the waves out and run away before another one got to her. Call it fatherly pride, but it was really cute. She cried when we took her away. But there'll be plenty more of the ocean tomorrow...although tomorrow will be a record high here (101 with a heat index of 110). So we'll have to limit ourselves.

I'll post pictures when I get back. I'm using someone else's laptop and I'm sure he won't want a bunch of Ellie's pictures loaded on here.

Anyways, it is really something else to see my child soak all of this in. It's like seeing it for the first time myself...and that's not just hyperbole.