Odegaard family beach vacation 2010!

Lately, Kalina's been requesting:

1. to go over to Grandpa's house for hot dogs
2. ice cream
3. a cat party
4. to fly a kite

And we've been working our way down the list. (The cat party will be held around the time of her birthday. And yes, she came up with the idea all by herself.) And where better to fly a kite and eat ice cream than at the beach? So we went.

We followed the good deals to North Myrtle Beach and sprung for a suite so that Matt and I might actually be able to enjoy naptime (hah!) and bedtime in front of the cable TV (at our house, the TV only works if there's a DVD playing, and we kind of like it that way).

The drive down took all of five minutes. Spirits were high, Kalina was content to point out various colors of signs, and we introduced animal crackers to her, which she enjoyed playing with more than eating. Fine by me. Once we got to North Myrtle, the mini-golf courses were more than enough drive-by entertainment ("Look, Kalina, a dinosaur!" "Another dinosaur?" "Sure, we'll look for another dinosaur.").

The suite was perfect, as was our view. We quickly coated Kalina in sunscreen about 1/4 inch thick and dashed off to the beach.

Kalina greeted the ocean as if she were seeing an old friend. As Matt set up the umbrella, I got the fun privilege of holding Kalina back as she rushed toward every wave, as if to give the Atlantic a great big hug. Matt soon took over (the strength of the ocean and my excited little girl wore me out!) and I watched for dolphins, because how cool would it be if Kalina got to see dolphins? (She didn't.)

Towards suppertime, we made our way through the maze of pools, dipping into one or two just because we could, and ordered pizza to eat in the room after cleaning up a bit.

Of course, we couldn't resist heading back out for a pre-sunset walk (Even Kalina's vacation bedtime, which meant she could stay up to her regular bedtime even though she hadn't really napped, wouldn't allow us to actually watch the sky turn pink from anywhere but our balcony). Regretting not sticking the girl in swimsuit and swim diaper, we nevertheless let her splash in waves and "puddles" (the little tiny creeks and ponds that form up on the sand as the tide recedes) to her little heart's content.

And Kalina's little heart sure was content! She took to the beach at a run. Apparently, smooth sand and no roadblocks are irresistible to an active toddler. She stopped only to play in the water a bit or draw a continuous line in the sand with her foot as Matt had taught her. Meanwhile, Matt dug up mole crabs and chased minnows, and Kalina happily glanced at them as she hopped* by. He also was instrumental in keeping Kalina out of the ocean's depths.

When we could put off bedtime absolutely no longer, we all headed back to our room. We promised ourselves an encore first thing in the morning.

The next dawned a bit brighter than Kalina did: a string of bad naps (starting Wednesday of the week prior to our trip) was beginning to take it's toll. We headed back to the beach as soon as we could, and started off on a walk.

Poor Kalina. On this particular morning, she enjoyed the beach (and later, the pools), more from Mommy's or Daddy's arms than in person. I think I even caught her saying "naptime" once or twice by 9:00 a.m.

The bright spot was flying the kite on the beach, as I'd told Kalina she could all throughout the week before our trip. One small problem: the day was as calm as could be. Fortunately, the wind picked up a tiny bit by mid-morning--enough for the kite to become airborne as long as Matt, holding the string, kept running (I was happy to be the photographer). Kalina wanted to fly it herself, with absolutely no help, even for launching, but fortunately was able to compromise and hold it while Daddy ran with her in his arms. It worked well enough for her to be able to say "I flew a kite on the beach," although I think she thought the whole experience was rather anti-climatic and didn't really ask to do it again.

An hour spent back in the room watching Animal Planet did nothing to revive Kalina's spirits, and after one more jaunt out to the beach and a hasty lunch we put her down for a nap, waited a good 15 minutes for her to quiet down, and headed out to the balcony.

Half an hour or so later, when Matt popped his head back inside to check on the girl, he heard far too much chatter for our liking. My nose told me a diaper change was in order, and although Matt did his best to get Kalina back to sleep afterward (he's better at that than I am), it soon became clear that not only was our happy girl back, but there was no way she wanted a nap.

Happy vacation, Kalina! No nap for you. We promised each other up and down that we would put her down for a really, for real, no really, early bedtime and headed off to the local aquarium.

Still clinging a couple animal crackers we'd given her for the road, Kalina was fairly content to walk around to various tanks and help us spot stingrays and colorful fish. The missing nap(s) soon caught up with her, though, and it soon became obvious that she wasn't enjoying herself nearly as much as she would've if she had the sleep she needed (I should note here that Kalina certainly wasn't making up for lost sleep by sleeping in until, say, 7:00 or 7:30. That would just be ridiculous). Poor girl.

Fortunately for all of us, our wanderings led us to a tank with a long, windy tunnel through it that you go through via a flat conveyor belt thingy you stand on (it's hard to describe). And what did Kalina find swimming overhead? A shark. Lots of sharks. And a few other fish, and lobsters, too. She was ecstatic. Thrilled to have our happy girl back, we trekked through it at least 3 times. Kalina, for her part, made sure Lamby was able to spot the sharks, too.

The rest of the afternoon/evening was unfortunately not spent on the beach, as an impending thunderstorm sent us out for dinner and ice cream instead. After all, we'd promised the girl ice cream and didn't mind enjoying some ourselves. Despite the return of sunny, gorgeous skies at 6:30 that evening, we nevertheless forced ourselves to get Kalina ready for bed and have her in it at a decent time, instead of heading back out. We crossed our fingers for good sleep, and a happier toddler in the morning.

And she was! Our little sunshine dawned early, but without too many detrimental effects. We once again headed to the beach.

After we all played in puddles for a while, Matt dug up a few mole crabs (he can never resist), and soon Kalina was digging up a mole crab too, in the puddle Matt had put it in. As someone who doesn't want to get within poking distance of the creatures, I didn't quite know what to think when my sweet little girl held one up. She could even find it after it had burrowed into the sand. Should I be worried?

And then we made a sand fortress and some sand cats, and Kalina was absolutely thrilled. "Another cat!" she said, over and over. My cats got much more rudimentary as I struggled to keep up with demand. Fortunately, she never asked for another fortress, because it was pretty elaborate.

We'd hardly played in the pools at all during our stay, so with still more than an hour left before checkout, we dove in. Scared at first, Kalina allowed herself to be coaxed into the water by riding piggyback on Daddy's shoulders, and thought chasing Mommy around was the best thing ever.

Back at the room, we rushed to clean up and clear out. The vacation was over. So sad.

This was never more obvious than on the ride home, which took about two days and almost took longer. I convinced Kalina to go to sleep, but an ambulance woke her up after--you guessed it--45 minutes. We still had a long, long way to go.

At home, we were rewarded by the fact that Kalina's toys all seemed new to her and she was content to play nicely by herself while we unpacked and tried to forget about the drive.

We still talk about the trip fairly often, and look at pictures, usually to rounds of "again? Again?" Clearly, Kalina remembers her beach vacation fondly, as will we. Plus, we could check off "fly a kite" and "have ice cream." Missions accomplished.

*"Hopping" is Kalina's favorite form of travel, both for herself and any animals she sees, real or pretend. True hopping is a light gallop, and it's best executed by the hopper repeating "hop, hop, hop" in a high-pitched voice mostly to herself. However, hopping can also mean a run, a jump or big step up to a higher place or onto an object (like a step or a slide), or really any means of bodily conveyance from one place to another. It's just precious.

Photo 1: Kalina "flying" a kite, all by herself!
Photo 2: Odegaard family beach trip photo
Photo 3: Daddy and Kalina chasing seagulls. Because what else would you do with a seagull?
Photo 4: Kalina's cool line in the sand
Photo 5: Kalina's favorite thing to do nowadays is wrap up in towels. Kitchen towels are usually the best fit, but we made a beach towel work.
Photo 6: Kalina flying a kite with Daddy's help
Photo 7: At the aquarium. In my haste to get a cute picture of Lamby, I forgot to include the shark everyone's looking at.
Photo 8: You can't really see the mole crab, but Kalina dug it up and is holding it. Look how proud Daddy is.
Photo 9: Sand cat-sles and other creations