High Expectations

We probably should give up on vacations--I think our problem is that we don't go on vacation very often, so we end up with very high expectations, and something usually goes wrong.  Well, this time, the wrong was Tropical Storm Beryl.

It was about a 6 hour car ride, and Em was a perfect traveler.  At one point, we did resort to Dora on the iPad and a Chick-fil-a snack :).

As I posted earlier, we arrived in Fernandina Beach Saturday afternoon and headed straight for the beach.  The weather was perfect and we had a great time.  Em said we had beach toes, so I had to get a picture :).

Sunday morning, we got dressed for the beach and stayed out for a couple of hours, but around 10:00 AM, it started to get dark and cloudy and a little rain started.  We stayed out on the deck for a little while, just watching the ocean. 

Em enjoyed blowing bubbles for everyone, especially Bella.  She loved that we had Gracie and Bella with us.

 She liked being outside and feeling the wind in her hair.

We spent some of Sunday in town--we had lunch at Jack & Diane's and Em did some window shopping.  We had ice cream sundaes and Em played at a little outdoor playground until it started raining on us.

By Sunday afternoon, it was getting so windy we could barely go to the beach because the sand was blowing so hard.  We went down long enough to take the dogs out, and were all ready to get back inside after only a few minutes.

We watched the storm get closer as it got later--the wind picked up and the waves started looking pretty fierce.

We went to bed that night with strong wind and rain, and Em woke us up around midnight crying because it had gotten really loud.  She got in the bed with us, and we all just stuck close together for about the next five hours.  At one point, it sounded like a herd of horses was galloping across the roof of the house, and we knew something was seriously wrong.  Mick put a chair in front of the french doors at the deck because we thought they were going to blow in, and the roof started leaking everywhere.  The bed was soaked pretty soon, and we found a dry spot to sit in the living room to wait it out.  Em managed to go back to sleep in my lap, and Gracie and Bella were surprisingly unaffected.

By about 5:00 AM, we could tell it was weakening some, and we were anxious for daylight to come--it was just a little scarier in the dark.  The power had gone off a few times, and we couldn't get online or watch TV for updates.  I had a weak signal on my phone, but enough to get on facebook and try to get an update.  Julie called me around 5:00 AM and gave us a weather update when she saw my post--we were glad to know Beryl was beginning to move away from us.

Em slept a little longer after I put her on a blanket on the couch, and we went out to find the entire roof had completely blown off the house, and half of the deck was gone.  It was truly a disaster area.  We knew we couldn't stay in the house for the week, so I got in touch with the owner and told her we were leaving.  We quickly packed everything up and left around 10:00 AM Monday morning.

First stop was Mick's parents' house, which was thankfully only about an hour away.