St Croix!

We took Nathan on his first beach vacation last week, to sunny beautiful tropical St Croix. Yes, we have beaches in the Carolinas... decently good ones, actually. And we really did try to arrange a beachy vacation much closer to home by extending an upcoming trip to Charleston. But with the hotel/condo prices there during Spoleto, and the minimum weeklong rental requirement, it ended up being cheaper to go to the Caribbean instead. (It's not as crazy as it sounds - I had some super-cheap tickets - like, less than $80 each - through work.)

St Croix is an easy decision for a beach vacation for us. Remember how we did an ocean swim race a couple of years ago, and my brother Brad liked it so much he decided to live there? Well, he's still enjoying his Virgin Islands life, and this week Nathan got to meet his Uncle Brad again - for only the second time ever. (The first time was about 4 days after his birth, so I don't think it made much of an impression. On Nathan, anyway.)

Let me tell you how relaxing this vacation was: ridiculously relaxing. We had a gorgeous condo, right on the beach (let me clarify... right on the beach... our back porch ended in the sand)... the whole place was open and airy with cool tile floors and an awesome breeze. We didn't plan anything ahead of time, so the Type-A in both of us got to just chill out for a bit. (We needed that, for our mental health.) Nathan could sleep in his own room far enough away to not be disturbed by Mark and me, but close enough that we could still be within earshot while lying on the beach or lounging on the porch. (Tell me that's not the perfect baby-vacation scenario!) The whole place is just so peaceful and relaxed!
And getting to see Nathan and Brad together was so fun. I'm sure at first he seemed like just another baby, but by the end of our long weekend, Brad was hugging and kissing him and we had to wrestle to get him back almost as hard as we do when Ashley's around. (If you've never witnessed it, I should tell you... that's substantial wrestling.) He seemed so proud of his little nephew, and Nathan really took to Brad's blond hair and sunglasses.

Besides this being the Nathan's first family vacation, we had a lot of other firsts as well.

1.) First plane ride.... Nathan was a champ. A champ, I tell you. Hardly any fussing, and there was an empty seat near us on every leg so we could bring the car seat on board (he sleeps better there than in our arms these days). Speaking of angels on shoulders.

2.) First boat ride.... we went sailing on Brad's boat (well, his boss's boat) for more than 6 hours one day, and Nathan had nary a complaint. He dozed for a little while, but handled himself with a lot of composure considering the almost-nonexistent nap. And that's a long day for a baby in the hot sun! (Yay Aveeno Baby 55+!)

3.) Mark's first time snorkeling. He's 27. Isn't that crazy? He said he felt like he was in an aquarium and he kept expecting to see people looking at him through a window. Ha!

4.) A new word... Go! We have been reading the book "Go Dog. Go!" a lot with Nathan, and when we gave it to him on the plane, he yelled, "Go!" It didn't take us long to realize that he will say "Go!" when you hand him any book... but whatever. He's still a Genius Baby! to me.

5.) Nathan has started scooting around on his front. He adamantly refuses to use his legs, so he's basically dragging himself on his arms... he turns in circles and goes backwards better than any forward motion we've witnessed. But it's something, and it's super-cute.

6.) First night in Florida.... due to the aforementioned cheap ticket, we had pretty limited schedule options for our flight, so we had to overnight in Florida on the way home. They only had 10 minutes (they said) to load us on the plane and get off the ground in St Croix before the crew was flying illegally... I have never seen such chaos in boarding! That crew really wanted to get home to Miami. And all the while, Nathan was yelling, "go, go!" Which was sort of amusing except for the nagging fear that the flight might get cancelled after we had waited for hours and hours and hours in what has to be the smallest airport in the Caribbean. The good news about our return flight is that we did not have to go through Texas the next day, as originally planned.

I'm not gonna lie... this will go down as one of our most memorable vacations to date, even though it was far simpler and less exotic than some we have taken. There's nothing like a gorgeous beach and your family to make you feel happy, huh?

For more pictures of our vacation in St Croix, click on Nathan in paradise, below.

by mgoetts