Happy Days: Nana's Visit & Trip to the Beach

So for weeks Cadence talked about going to the beach, we're going to the beach, and she would name all these people that were going to the beach with her - Nana, Pop-Pop, Papa John, Gramma, Auntie Pammy, Uncle Jared, Uncle Joey, Dylan...the list goes on and on. So, while Nana was here for a visit, we went to the beach. En route, however, it came out that Cadence believed that there would be lots of animals to see at the beach - lions, elephants, penguins, etc. Turns out, she had mixed up beach and zoo. This whole time she was wanting to go to the zoo, and we took her too the beach. Well, we'll get to the zoo eventually, but while Nana was here, we went on different adventures.

We were so glad to have Nana come visit! She brought with her a little of her Nana magic; Kennedy was in a great mood and started sleeping better at night, and Cadence was an absolute doll, breaking out the cute every minute. Not that the girls are horrible when Nana isn't there. They are both wonderful, but sometimes hanging out with Mom gets old, so when Nana was here, it was like magic the way everyone was sunshiney and happy from the moment they woke up until they went to bed without a fuss.

The weekend Nana got here, Jeremy was on call. He wanted to take her to the Farmer's Market on Sunday, and they had just headed over when he got called in for the second time that morning. Nana was stranded at the hospital until the girls and I got out of church, and Jeremy didn't get finished until much later that evening. Unfortunately, this hospital basically shuts down for the weekend, so there was no cafeteria, gift shop, or any other entertaining thing going on to keep Nana occupied until we could get there to rescue her.

Cadence was so excited every morning to wake up and have Nana right here in our living room. She was especially excited when her friend Lily came over for a quick minute. Cadence introduced Lily to "My friend, Nana" and then made her give Nana a hug. Lily has a Nana that lives in Alabama, and didn't think twice about giving someone else's Nana a hug. Cadence also got to show Nana how much fun she has at Kid's Castle, as well as one of the places we like to go buy fruit (they were getting ready for their Fall Harvest Festival and had a hay maze set up, so Cadence showed Nana how good she is at running the hay mazes), and we took Nana swimming with us at the YMCA.

The weekend before Nana left, we took her to Seattle and to REI, Molbak's, and Olympic Beach in Edmonds. (I have some pictures from the outing at Molbak's with the girls posing in the pumpkin displays, but I have to figure out a way to get them off Jeremy's phone first.) Cadence had fun looking for shells. Right now we don't have to worry about her collecting anything to bring home because as soon as she finds a shell, she runs and throws it in the water. We tried showing her a couple of really neat rocks, and found some good-sized shells. She was really enthusiastic about the finds, exclaiming "Oh yeah!" and "Wow, that's really big!". Then she would take the treasure from whomever had found it and run go throw it in the ocean. I think that was her favorite part.

It was sad when we had to take Nana to the airport so she could go home. Cadence understood that Nana had to go back to take care of Chancey, and as long as she was sure Chancey needed Nana, it was okay if she went back. For about a week after, Cadence asked to go to Nana's house, or would tell me it would be okay if Nana came and stayed at our house again. It was so fun to have her come to visit, and we miss her terribly. We miss all of our family that we don't get to see very often, and cherish every moment we do get to spend with them.

After Nana's visit, we went to stay with Auntie Pammy and Dylan for a couple of days. Uncle Jared was there too. :) We ended up taking a trip to the beach near Pam's house too, at a place called Indianola.

The girls had an awesome time visiting everyone on this trip. Enjoy the pictures of the beach until I can post some from other things we did. Look for a link to the right to an album with more pictures from the beach (I only posted a few here).

When we first arrived, Cadence couldn't see the beach, so we told her to head over all those logs

She found the beach, and wasn't too impressed at first, although she didn't really hesitate to pick up the seaweed after Dad showed her it was okay to touch (notice the pincher grasp and lifted pinky - she's still not too sure about this stuff)