beach baby

hurray! this is the day i was most excited for on this trip - madelyn's first trip to the beach! i spent a lot of my life at the beach and i couldn't wait to take maddie. she immediately enjoyed the sticks and coconut shell she found in her first few steps (she is holding the coconut shell in the picture). just like lakes park the day before, it took her a little bit to warm up to all that water. we took her out to sanibel island and went to the lighthouse beach (not sure it that is its actual name or not). i thought that it would be nicer to take her to out there (as opposed to fort myers beach) because it would be less crowded and there would be lots of shells for her to find. once she got used to the waves, she sat down at the water's edge, but you can see how a big wave takes her breath away a little.

madelyn also enjoyed playing in the wet sand. she hasn't been a huge fan of sandboxes so i wasn't sure how this was going to go and was relieved that she had gotten over her sand phobia. we played at the beach for about 2-1/2 hours before calling it a day so that we could get maddie home for her nap.

after getting maddie all situated matt and i headed back out to sanibel to stay in the hotel we honeymooned in almost 7 years ago. we had arranged to stay out there for a night as an early anniversary present to each other. luckily we had managed to drop madelyn's evening nursing earlier in the trip and only had the morning one to worry about. but grandma said that she did great in the morning once she realized that i wasn't there and she was going to have to have her milk from the refrigerator. matt and i had a great time reliving our honeymoon by biking all over the island and walking up and down the beach at low tide that night. unfortunately after getting up with maddie every day for a year i was not able to sleep past 7:30 even though i really, really wanted to...

love.