Vacation

I am terrible at blogging.  There are many posts that form in my head and never make it to the computer.  Miriam's 3 months of being in our family passed with no post (maybe I will make that one up later this week). BUT I am back because we just got home from a Florida vacation.  Joey had a conference in Orlando and with frequent flier miles and free hotel stay, we just couldn't pass up a chance to go with him.  Before we went, I was concerned that this would be too much for Miriam since she has only been here a short amount of time.  We took it easy and went fairly low key, but we did have some great FIRST times while we were there.  This post is dedicated to her first time at the beach.  Joey, Helen, Miriam, and I flew down on Friday night.  Poor Caleb has baseball so he had to stay home and take care of the cats.  On Saturday, we decided to drive over toward Cape Canaveral and introduce Miriam to the beach.  We have read books about the beach, but because she has never seen it, she had no concept of it.  It was a great day!     The weather was warm and the sun was out.  Usually I prefer the Gulf when going to the beach, but this day the Atlantic was blue and beautiful.  We climbed the stairs from the parking lot and as we walked across the boardwalk, Miriam's eyes got bigger and bigger.  We stopped to look, and she asked, "Is this the beach?" We nodded and her smile grew.  For a few moments, she just had to observe all of it...feel the sand with her toes...watch the waves in Papa's arms...and then she took off running and jumping and loving all of it. After a little bit of playing, Miriam decided that she needed to put on her swimming suit...good thing we brought it.  A special treat was that while we were there a group of dolphins swam passed.  What a great day!