Grannie Camp: the Beach!

(Yes, I am still catching up on our blog posts from November- the rest of our trip to my grandparents' house, Thanksgiving, and two birthdays!)

The weather was just warm enough to enjoy walks on the beach during the day and after dark! That's another big plus about grandparents- parents are encouraged to take romantic walks on the beach while the kiddo sleeps! Leaving through the back gate:
Grannie was so sweet to rent a really nice jogging stroller while we were there and this is how it got used most:
It was beautiful, sunny beach weather! We enjoyed the sand even though the water was freezing. Kenna loves the beach and we had so much fun taking some really sweet pictures of our family, and some of my all-time favorites of Kenna!

We loved seeing Kenna play on the beach, and especially chasing the seagulls. She kept saying "hug bird" over and over- she is such an animal lover already. She was so sad when she couldn't catch one!

"Bird" was a new word for her, as was "shell" which she discovered plenty of to explore in behind Pop Pop's big chair.

Later in the day we went for lunch at a restaurant called the Palm Pavilion which is right on the beach with a big porch overlooking the water! When I was little, it was a place that you would walk in right off the beach, still in your bathing suit, and sit at the "bar" and have a coke and a burger. Over the years it has become much fancier with nice seafood and very few people wearing bathing suits. But the burgers were still delicious!

One afternoon we drove out across the bridge to the town of Dunedin, which is kind of like a little mountain town right beside an ocean. Matt and I both thought it reminded us of Boone. The whole main street was closed off for the weekend for a craft show and street festival which we walked through and did a little early Christmas shopping. Matt took this completely precious picture of Kenna that shows not only her little stage of learning by imitation, but how immediately she took to Grannie and just loves being around her:

Our fearless one had to stop and meet every dog she saw.
We walked around and bought a few early Christmas presents. And of course, an ice cream stop was necessary!
We had to laugh when we saw this booth at the very end. Grannie didn't know she was active on the craft show circuit! The fine print says "for the discriminating Grannie- too funny!
Ready for more adventures!

"Lazy" August Days

For three years now in August we have gone out to Cary for a craft show/street festival called Lazy Days (we barely took a single picture that first year, except for this one I posted on my craft blog!). It has become a fun family tradition now because the highlight of the afternoon is getting lunch and a cupcake at the deli/bakery that made our wedding cake almost 6 years ago (wowza! 6 years?) called Blue Moon Bakery. I will always remember sitting in their cafe area with Mom tasting about 20 different cake/icing/ganache filling combinations, and then settling on plain old vanilla cake with vanilla icing because it was just so good. It is especially fun to have taken Kenna with us for her second year in a row. We even got to say hello to the owner and tell her that we got our wedding cake from them and are now bringing our almost-two-year old daughter to get cupcakes... and she remembered delivering our cake to us! (I guess our odd last name is fairly memorable).

Even though it is always incredibly hot in August, it was not too bad this year. There are several different places where there are "misting tents" set up to cool things off, which Kenna LOVED. She is a pretty big fan of anything involving water or water being sprayed at her. I had thought that she would enjoy the festival part of it a little more this year since she was old enough to enjoy all the little kid freebies and such... which she did, but the combination of hitting it right at nap time, the heat, and not being able to get out and walk very well was not a winner with Kenna.

She did however, enjoy spinning the wheel at the Chick Fil A booth and winning a cow pez candy dispenser which she adorably kept calling "moo" and also got a hat!
Last August our sweet little cupcake eater was a wee little 9 month old:
And this year she is a big 21 month old! (And ate the whole cupcake by herself):
Barely a crumb left:
Between the heat and all the fun things to look at, our little one conked out hard in the car on the way home. We thought she was so sweet, still clutching her juice and her two balloons:
It was hard to show self-restraint amongst all the lovely and interesting handmade things! The one thing we got was this adorable little apple dress for Kenna. It caught my eye and Matt agreed that it would be perfect for her. Since Nana can't be here anymore to make the beautiful handmade dresses she made for me when I was little, we thought this would be the next best thing. She wore it to church the next day, and we got a few pictures of her in it:
The back is my favorite! I love a little girl in a sundress- she just looks so breezy and comfortable and little-girly!
And since we didn't get a single one of all three of us at Lazy Days (which I really wish we had now that it has become a tradition!) here is one of Kenna and Daddy at church: