to the beach!!

The Parman side of the family converged in Gulf Shores, Alabama for what is turning out to be an annual tradition. It was so nice to leave SA, TX for a little while and not worry about packing up the house or the endless job of keeping it tidy for showings. Grace seemed to be intrigued by the gritty stuff on the beach and at first didn't like to touch it or crawl in it. By the second and third days she liked the sand so much she was eating it. I guess that's the benefit of not really having teeth to speak of- then you're not haunted hours later by another crunch of a granule of sand between the teeth. And apparently the taste of salt was just fine by her as well. She'd do her usual fingers sucking and didn't even flinch at the taste. Makes me shudder just thinking about it!

A tribute to Dan's Grandma. She passed away on Wednesday, June 24th. We left from Gulf Shores and headed up to Indiana to be with family. A little good that came out of a sad time was that we got to see both sides of the family all in one week. Grace with her Grandma Pat-Pat.

Grace was fascinated by her big cousin Cadan. She wanted his Cheerios every morning and was interested because he was more her size. She would try to follow him everywhere he went. He says he doesn't like babies "because they play with my toys and they're loud." Secretly I think he liked Grace.

Hmmm.. the world looks funny upside down

If you would have told me in advance that we were going to take what is normally an 18 hour drive with a 10 month old, I would have laughed and said, 'ya right!' We broke up the drive back from Indiana to Texas over 2 days and each day was nearly 12 hours due to longer and more frequent stops. I think Grace was somewhat blissfully unaware- at least she wasn't asking, "are we there yet?" every 5 minutes. She was a trooper until the last 5 minutes. We had just turned on to the last road off of the interstate to our house and she started crying this cry that sounded like, 'I just can't take it anymore!' For a little girl that is always moving and on the go, she did such a good job.