Beach! Beach! Beach! (End of May)

After Jackson's birthday weekend, Kyle met back up with us Monday evening along with our friends Nick, Jaime, & Latham to head to Orange Beach, AL...but not before we showed them around our home town of Baton Rouge, Louisiana! :)

We all stayed at Maw Maw and Paw Paw Silvio's Monday night. We had a great time visiting with them and being spoiled with spaghetti dinner and breakfast the next morning. Tuesday morning, Jaime and I made a last minute Target run while the boys packed the cars. This was also the day we turned Jackson's car seat around facing forward! I was really trying to wait as long as we could because I'm the Queen of Car Safety (I just gave myself that title), but his legs were just getting too long! He was over 20 lbs. and 4 days from being a year old, so I gave in. I will say, he was MUCH happier facing forward! He's never been a bad car rider, but he was just EXCITED to see the world! His first few minutes facing forward were precious.
We knew we only had a short while in Baton Rouge because we were BEACH BOUND, so we decided to stick to the essentials: LSU & The Chimes. Latham and Jackson had a great time visiting Mike the Tiger and even stopped to pose for a few pictures with the statue of Mike. We introduced Nick and Jaime to Boudin Balls at The Chimes, and they were hooked. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, someone spilled the beans to them on what Boudin Balls are made of and they are not such huge fans anymore. I told them it's all a lie...
When we finished up lunch, we were headed for the Beach! Beach! Beach! When we got to the condo that night, we took the boys out to the beach. The sand was so sugary and white. It was the cleanest I've ever seen it! Jackson was in love! He immediately started playing in it and then of course dumping it all over his head. Such a boy.
Jackson had just started walking before we went to the beach. He really sharpened up his skills while we were there!
Love it.
Jaime did such a great job picking out the condo. It was PERFECT for kids! So much for them to do. Even though J plays in fountains all the time, he was a little unsure. Haha.
J tried out the hot tub and liked it.
Hanging out in the condo...
J was so happy to be with Kyle so much! L & J checking out the view from a window in our condo.
Hanging out under the kitchen table. Haha.
We spent a lot of time on the beach playing in the sand and in the indoor pool and hot tub. The big pools were still a little chilly.
J spent a lot of time doing this.
And getting stuck like this.
And being the victim of Kyle's ideas of fun things to do in the sand.
And digging.
And taking breaks for lunch. I think this was the last week he drank out of bottles...*tear*...we quit them--and formula--cold turkey when we got back home. He did great!
One night we thought it would be a good idea to take the boys to a Hibachi grill...a really nice one might I add...and we did not get quite the reaction we expected. Ha! The boys were terrified of the banging and the fire and the whole deal. Latham calmed down quicker than Jackson. J was pretty shook up and cried through most of the dinner. Awful. Embarrassing. But we still were able to laugh about it. I'm still laughing about it.
One night we found this little hole-in-the-wall place to eat called Bahama Bob's. It was so good, and they had the most amazing Ranch dressing ever. :) The boys were great at that restaurant, and it was a fun night. Here's the little family pic we took before we left to go eat.

And afterward, Kyle really indulged in this amazing banana split. We were all slightly jealous.

We had such a fun time on our beach trip, and we can't wait to do it again! To see more pictures and fun stories, you can view Jaime's Blog entry here: http://cochranchron.blogspot.com/2009/05/beach-beach-beach.html

The morning we left the beach was Jackson's First Birthday! May 23, 2009. Wow. He wore his "1" shirt all day and even had a cake ball for breakfast on his birthday! We took our time getting home and even stopped back through Baton Rouge to see the Silvios once more. Nick wanted to get lunch at the Original Raising Cane's on the LSU campus before we left town, so we did that. It was a great trip!