Can you tell Ellie is excited to finally be at her "summer home"? She's been asking about it for months! (Probably because we told her that she could open this cool gift - pictured above - from Uncle Joe and Aunt Bel when we got here!) Well, we finally arrived and are getting settled in for our 9 week adventure down in Gulf Shores, AL. So far, so good! This post will mostly be about the girls, though I am planning to post more about the program as things get started! We arrived on Tuesday, May 17th. Yep! Alexa's FIRST BIRTHDAY! Poor little thing spent most of it in the car, but thankfully, she didn't seem to mind. We had celebrated a little the week before and we hope to have another party with students sometime soon!
We are living in a hotel room for the summer. Well, it's actually bigger than that! We have two bedrooms and a small living/eating area. It's worked out perfectly. But here is the funny part. Ellie is getting the room with the King sized bed all to herself! Her bed is pictured above. Joel and Alexa and I are sharing a room with two full sized beds. As you can see, Alexa isn't in the full sized bed but instead in a pack and play in the corner. We rigged a curtain type thing to give her her own space. She won't sleep if she can see us. So, every night and at nap time we pull the curtain and she goes to sleep! It's actually worked quite a bit smoother than I was anticipating! The only catch is that I sometimes have to get ready in the dark in the mornings. Ha! Kinda scary... :)
Alexa is loving her new little home away from home! Here she is playing with some blocks she got from Nana and Papa McCulley for her birthday! Both of the girls LOVE them! We build lots of towers and Ellie is really getting into her letters and trying to spell things...
There is a cute little outlet mall down the road that has a great play area. Most days while Joel is in meetings with the students, I take the girls to go play for about an hour before naptime. Ellie just loves it!
Today was a fun day! We got to go to the BEACH with all of our student leaders! They have been training really hard for the last couple of days since they arrived and have a couple days of training left before the rest of the participants of the program arrive. So, some fun time was built into the schedule today and we all had a great time! Ellie has really changed her tune about the ocean this year. She hated the sand and water last year, but now she is loving it and you can't take your eye off of her for a second.
She got to build sandcastles with the students and they also built her her very own sand chair! She is eating up all of the attention for sure!
Sweet Alexa did great as well! She is going to have the complexion of her mother, so needless to say, I have to keep her lathered up in sunscreen like crazy! We found out that she loves to eat the sand. :/ And actually loves to have her little feet dipped in the water. She just laughed and laughed! She even missed her afternoon nap today but was just as content as could be. Such a little sweetie...
Daddy does SUCH a good job with the girls. Here is Alexa hanging out with Dad. He helped her get her little feet in the water, but it was Ellie who got to go out in the deep part. She couldn't have been more excited! She tried to get Mommy to take her back out there, but I wouldn't go far enough for her liking. Wasn't willing to chance us both going under! Ha!
Here she is posing for a beach pick. Isn't her little suit cute? Gotta love those pink ruffles.
It's going to be a great summer!!! We're so excited for all that God has in store!
Can you tell Ellie is excited to finally be at her "summer home"? She's been asking about it for months! (Probably because we told her that she could open this cool gift - pictured above - from Uncle Joe and Aunt Bel when we got here!) Well, we finally arrived and are getting settled in for our 9 week adventure down in Gulf Shores, AL. So far, so good! This post will mostly be about the girls, though I am planning to post more about the program as things get started! We arrived on Tuesday, May 17th. Yep! Alexa's FIRST BIRTHDAY! Poor little thing spent most of it in the car, but thankfully, she didn't seem to mind. We had celebrated a little the week before and we hope to have another party with students sometime soon! 
We are living in a hotel room for the summer. Well, it's actually bigger than that! We have two bedrooms and a small living/eating area. It's worked out perfectly. But here is the funny part. Ellie is getting the room with the King sized bed all to herself! Her bed is pictured above. Joel and Alexa and I are sharing a room with two full sized beds. As you can see, Alexa isn't in the full sized bed but instead in a pack and play in the corner. We rigged a curtain type thing to give her her own space. She won't sleep if she can see us. So, every night and at nap time we pull the curtain and she goes to sleep! It's actually worked quite a bit smoother than I was anticipating! The only catch is that I sometimes have to get ready in the dark in the mornings. Ha! Kinda scary... :) 
Alexa is loving her new little home away from home! Here she is playing with some blocks she got from Nana and Papa McCulley for her birthday! Both of the girls LOVE them! We build lots of towers and Ellie is really getting into her letters and trying to spell things... 
There is a cute little outlet mall down the road that has a great play area. Most days while Joel is in meetings with the students, I take the girls to go play for about an hour before naptime. Ellie just loves it!
Today was a fun day! We got to go to the BEACH with all of our student leaders! They have been training really hard for the last couple of days since they arrived and have a couple days of training left before the rest of the participants of the program arrive. So, some fun time was built into the schedule today and we all had a great time! Ellie has really changed her tune about the ocean this year. She hated the sand and water last year, but now she is loving it and you can't take your eye off of her for a second. 
She got to build sandcastles with the students and they also built her her very own sand chair! She is eating up all of the attention for sure!
Sweet Alexa did great as well! She is going to have the complexion of her mother, so needless to say, I have to keep her lathered up in sunscreen like crazy! We found out that she loves to eat the sand. :/ And actually loves to have her little feet dipped in the water. She just laughed and laughed! She even missed her afternoon nap today but was just as content as could be. Such a little sweetie...
Daddy does SUCH a good job with the girls. Here is Alexa hanging out with Dad. He helped her get her little feet in the water, but it was Ellie who got to go out in the deep part. She couldn't have been more excited! She tried to get Mommy to take her back out there, but I wouldn't go far enough for her liking. Wasn't willing to chance us both going under! Ha!
Here she is posing for a beach pick. Isn't her little suit cute? Gotta love those pink ruffles.
It's going to be a great summer!!! We're so excited for all that God has in store!
2 comments:
aw, it looks like the girls are having so much fun!!! Wish we got to be there with you!
Such cute pictures, love the one of the girls together in the chair. They are such little darlings. Thanks for posting. We love looking at them and are excited for more. Love you.
Mom
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