Busy, busy, busy!

This past weekend was busy, busy, busy! Payton & I were so fortunate to go spend 3 days at our friend's beach condo in beautiful Longboat Key. Payton had an absolute ball playing on the beach, at the pool, and even in the condo's courtyard area. They scoured the tall trees for long sticks that had dropped on the ground and then march around with them making up various games. Of course, this gave me & my friend Rachel lots of time to relax with our coffee and enjoy the cool morning breeze as they occupied themselves with the sticks.


The days were spent playing on the beach for hours and hours. They loved walking the beach, finding coquina shell habitats in the shallow waters, searching for seashells (or crabs or coconuts), chasing the sandpipers and seagulls and covering themselves with as much sand as humanly possible. We had a wonderful time! (Thank you so much Rachel!!)

Then today after church we headed out to the 55th Annual H&R Train Show out in Pinellas Park. The show was at the same train store where Payton previously had a huge meltdown (see previous blog post), however this time, we made sure he understood that we were NOT buying anything.

And that the show was just for looking.
He did so much better - actually, he was perfectly behaved the entire time. There were more than 40 train displays set up and he walked from train to train with the most wide eyes. He studied each set up and watched so carefully as each train passed by. It was the most adorable thing. Of course, Brian couldn't pass up the big sale they were having and purchased an entire electric set for Payton, which he will not get until Christmas. All in all, it was a huge success.

So, it was a busy weekend full of fun activities. And the Gators won, which makes it even that much better! Too bad the Rays couldn't pull out a win tonight. Oh well... there's always tomorrow night...