In case you missed it, here’s part 1 of the Port A photo dump!
After two busy first days of vacation with a wedding and a big family day at the beach, we spent the rest of the week enjoying a more relaxed pace. Port A is a pretty stereotypical beach town, so there were lots of seafood restaurants, surf shops, candy stores and ice cream parlors.
On Monday night, Jose and I enjoyed a “date night” while Grandma stayed at the condo with Emma. We went to a restaurant on the marina/harbor and enjoyed a lovely sunset while we waited for a table. The restaurant didn’t live up to the view, but c’est la vie!
On Tuesday night, we met up with a bunch of family at Jose’s aunt Lupe’s house for dinner. One of Emma’s second cousins, Danielle, is just under a year older — she’ll be 2 at the end of August. It was kind of mind-blowing to see what a difference a year makes at that age, and imagine what Emma will be like at this time next year. Dani is walking, talking, and totally adorable.
Everyone in the first three rows in this shot is a family member.
On Wednesday night, we went to watch Jose’s cousin Maegan play basketball. She’s 11 years old and taller than all the other girls by several inches, so obviously she plays center!
Emma was intent on watching the action on the court the whole time! The buzzer from the scoreboard was loud, and frightened her the first time she heard it, but she didn’t seem fazed after that. Unfortunately Maegan’s team lost, but it was still fun to go watch her play.
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The condo complex where we stayed had a nice pool area, so on Thursday morning bright and early, we took Emma over there to enjoy the water in her new floaty. It was early so we had the pool to ourselves, which was great because it always got pretty crowded as the day went on. It took her a moment to figure out what was going on, as she’d never been in the water without me holding on to her. But soon enough, she was splashing away.
On Thursday and Friday mornings, Jose and I also got up early enough to go for a walk on the beach before it got too sunny and hot. On Friday, we took $2 so that we could walk to the end of this big fishing pier. I took the panorama above with my phone so it’s a little misleading; in reality, the pier was shaped like a T.
Emma at lunch; fancy date night at Roosevelt’s
On Thursday night, we got to have a final date night before the end of vacation. We tried to book a sunset cruise but two — yes, two! — different places both cancelled on us. (The first cancelled less than an hour before departure. We then called the second, who said maybe they would go…and then called back a half hour later to say never mind.) Fortunately, that turned out to be an ok thing because we ended up going to a restaurant called Roosevelt’s instead that was fantastic.
On Friday, our last night of vacation, Jose’s aunt Mary (on the front left of the photo above in the black capris) invited everyone over to her house for dinner. And I mean EVERYONE. The crowd above isn’t even the full group — there were another 5 or 6 adults who didn’t make it into the photo, and another 5 or 6 little kids who were playing in the yard. At least one of the girls there was Emma’s THIRD cousin. Talk about a big crazy family!
This blank stare courtesy of being up way past her usual bedtime!
Saturday morning, it was finally time to pack up and go home. Emma was pretty subdued when she woke up since we’d kept her up pretty late the evening before, but she regained her usual energy in due order and had a great time playing with the dirty laundry basket while Jose and I packed up all our gear. (I have a whole other post I plan to write about packing for a week-long trip with a 10-month-old!)
Emma was a surprisingly low maintenance little road-tripper, and I think we all had a fun and relaxing week of vacation. Jose and I are already thinking about doing it again next year!
[…] mentioned in my 11-month letter to Emma that I was a little freaked out about taking a week-long vacation with her — there were just so many things to worry about! And so, to mitigate my pre-trip […]