Vacation

Greetings from the humid gulf coast! This week we're passing the time in Fort Morgan, Alabama just in time for hurricane season!

To kick the trip off, we headed to Lawrenceburg on Saturday for Mamaw's 80th birthday party. Talk about a full house! After a couple of hours, the party wound down and we got to spend some quality time with the immediate fam. As a thanks to my Mom for helping us out over the last month, we presented her a very cute Jack photo necklace.

Later that evening, we headed south, stopping in Birmingham for the night. This stop was all about Jack since we intended to visit the new Lego store Sunday.

Ok, so we made this stop for Daddy too... While Jack was carefully evaluating all the various Lego kits, Daddy started filling a couple of containers full of individual pieces at the Pick A Brick wall.

While Jack took a snack break, Daddy continued picking out pieces. While Mommy and Jack walked all around the mall, Daddy continued his meticulous task. When Mommy returned and started waving Lego cookie cutters, refrigerator magnets and cake molds in Daddy's face, he figured it was probably time to wrap things up. Maybe we can stop again on the way home...

With Birmingham (and our vacation budget) behind us we headed the rest of the way on Sunday with a somewhat fussy baby. The last hour was a mad dash, hoping we'd make it before our passenger in the back seat had a complete meltdown. We couldn't really blame him given that we'd thrown him completely off his schedule for two straight days. As a reward to Mommy and Daddy, Jack slept from 9 to 5, essentially through the night for the first time!

Something I don't remember seeing in Gulf Shores that you do see here are offshore oil platforms. They're actually quite pretty at night and unlike Texas the beaches are still pristine.

Our little condo is quite cozy and right on the beach. It's on the ground floor and the photo above was taken from the porch. We're close enough to the water so that Monday morning Laura spotted a school of dolphins out in the surf. Later that afternoon, the remains of tropical storm Claudette finally arrived in the form of strong winds and high surf. It was during this time that Laura decided to take a walk on the beach while I watched Jack. I have a picture of her wild hair when she returned, but in the interest of marital harmony I've decided to keep it to myself...

Jackson has actually shown some interest in the ocean. Later in the evening, the winds died down so we decided to take Jack on a walk down the beach. He didn't take his eyes off the surf. When we turned around to head back, he turned his head around to face the ocean again.

Speaking of Jackson, he's really gaining control of his hands. He's been favoring his right hand, but this past week he's been using his left hand quite a bit. We can hold a pacifier in front of him and he'll reach out for it, grab it and put it in his mouth. Sometimes it's backwards, but at least it's in his mouth. He's also started touching the face of whoever happens to be holding him. Too cute.