Us Ives: With love from the Bahamas

It's only Thursday and we have had such a good week so far. I don't want to fast-forward through these last couple of days, but since in the Bahamas I have time to do things like read, nap, and blog, then blog I will.

First of all, flying here went really well. We woke up early, early Saturday morning (scooped the boys out of their cribs at 3:30) to drive to the Richmond airport with my mom and dad. The boys were both sleepy but happy and didn't sleep on the ride like I had thought. Our short flight to Philadelphia took off some time around 5:30. Brady slept the full 35 minutes and Anderson sat talking happily to his daddy. We had a 3 hour layover in Philadelphia. Luckily there was a cute play area for kids, so we were all happy to eat some breakfast and watch the boys play. The flight to Freeport was about 3 hours long. This time Anderson slept the whole way; Brady tried to, but he was more restless. I ended up holding him for the majority of the flight. Lots of good snuggles. We arrived in the Bahamas a little after 1. All in all a great travel day. However, I said numerous times, "I don't know how anyone can travel with kids by themself!" (Looking at you, super mama Sarah Casson!)

We've had a few sick puppies. Brady was fighting a cold the first half of the week. Wednesday the cold hit Anderson pretty hard, but he's already bouncing back today. Both boys spent one night in the bed with either us or me, which is really unusual. With that said, they've both really enjoyed the Bahamas, especially Anderson! Now that Brady's feeling more like himself, I'm hoping he'll really have fun these last couple of days.

The boys have had a lot of fun floating around in the pool. We brought several floatie toys, like these...

Anderson has done great floating around in this ring. He kicks to "swim" and is so much more fearless in the pool than last year!

Not that I'm complaining, you'll notice that there are no other people around in most of these pictures. This week more than ever before (our first time to come in June), we've pretty much had the place to ourselves. Apparently all 10 units are rented this week (we're in 2), and we see some people now and then, but nobody's out enjoying the beautiful pool and ocean nearly as much as we are. Either that or the "older crowd" this week is just avoiding the toddlers. Either way, works for us!

The ocean is just ideal for the boys. It is sooo shallow, especially during low-tide. They can just sit and splash. And the rocks that have kind of annoyed me in years past (no fun to accidentally step on them when you're trying to get out to the water) have entertained the boys to no end. We've found treasures, admired, observed, stacked, and thrown the rocks for hours and hours this week. I love the rocks.

This guy woke up extra early most days and tended to wilt an hour or so into the beach. I think it's mainly because of his cold. But still lots of smiles!

In our defense, this was only Tuesday. Picture us with savage tans, now. ;-)

Cheese ball

With the little guys, going out to eat isn't as much fun as staying in.

We did go out to a "fancy restaurant" one night. Ryan and I got a date night, too (super fun and delicious food!), and we are all planning to go into the resort/ straw market area this evening to look around a grab a quick dinner. Here are a few pictures of us all cleaned up...