"Fay"cation 2008

To say that I've had cabin fever is a tremendous understatement. We were housebound for part of April, all of May, all of June and were just able to get out a little bit in July (like to the doctor's office and the occasional trip to Target). So we decided to take a little family getaway last weekend. We wanted to go someplace close in case we needed access to our doctor so we went to Tybee Island. It's a barrier island right off the coast of Savannah. Only about an hour and a half from St. Simons. It's really quaint (read: kinda boring), but perfect for a long weekend with a toddler and a newborn.

Then Hurricane Fay decided to come our way. If the storm had kept moving like they predicted then we probably would have been fine, but instead it sat right over Orlando/Daytona/St. Augustine for 2-3 days. Right as we were supposed to go on this trip. We went back and forth on what to do, but in the end we decided to go anyway. We figured that we were going north, away from the storm so we'd be fine right? Wrong.

Don't get me wrong we didn't get nearly as much bad weather as the people in Florida, but it certainly wasn't nice.

We rented a beach house, but never set foot on the sand. We lost power on Thursday night and Friday and kept debating whether we should drive home or not. We stuck it out, kept a sense of humor and actually had fun. The kids were on such excellent behavior. Made me realize that we need to go on vacation much more often!

For those of you have been to St. Simons before you know the causeway has marsh on both sides - usually lots of grass with small areas of water visible. This is a photo of the causeway as we were leaving for Tybee Island - no grass, only water! There was water creeping up on both sides of the causeway at a couple of points. At this time Bryan and I gave each other the "are we really dumb enough to go on a beach vacation during a tropical storm" look. And we just kept driving.

Bryan and the little angels

Our first day was really, really stormy so we drove into Savannah (at least there was electricity) and found this cool ArtZeum. We had a great time there. Every city should have an interactive art museum like this.

Video from Day Two

This is a little snippet of the tropical storm action. This was the closest we got to the beach.

It finally stopped raining on Saturday morning so we went to the park - still way too windy to go to the beach. Here are Daddy & Dylan on the see-saw.

Sweet Marina looking so angelic.

Video: Dancing Dylee
This video was taken on our last night on Tybee. The sun finally came out this day; there were still 20-30 mph winds, but we could at least go to the park and walk along the boardwalk. And finally we weren't the only people in a restaurant. This was taken at The Crab Shack, home to 78 live alligators! After we fed the alligators (some really nasty meat we bought from the bartender), we walked by the main entrance which had a little stage of wooden alligators and was playing Jimmy Buffet. It seemed natural to let Dylan join in!

... picking out the equipment ...

... feeding the alligators...

... happy alligators!

Bye, Bye Tybee! Dylan's ready for the drive - in his seat and watching a movie!

What's New at the Jaynes House?

It's been a busy summer for us! What's been going on you ask? Well, let's see.

• We had a new baby.


• We built a new playroom.


• Dylan's learned about 10-15 NEW words (no profanity thank god!)


• Dylan starts preschool on September 2nd.


• I'm launching a new business at the end of August (more on that later).


• Bryan's golf game sucks.


• And oh yeah, we're potty training Dylan! And he's about 75% of the way there! (That's our little bit of news for the family :) Got you to click through to the blog, didn't it?)

Seriously ... crazy days and sleepless nights!

The Dylee-Dawg Days of Summer

All this attention and airtime for Marina has made Dylan a tad bit jealous, but he's working through it! Honestly, he's been great with her. Everytime I pick him up from daycare he wants to see where Marina is, what she's doing and make sure she has a toy in her crib to play with (as long as it's not one of his!). He's a great big brother.

Here are a few pics of him from the summer...

Dylan and Lauren in the sprinkler

Best action shot ever! Click on this image and check out the expression on Dylan's face!

Clearly been outside playing in the 100 degree heat and with that mischevious look he must think he's about to pull one over on me or Bryan.

Looks like it didn't work. Now he's just mad. Ha!

She's a month old!

Most of these photos were taken when Marina was about 4 weeks old. At 4 weeks she weighed almost 6 pounds and 20 inches long. She's still wearing preemie clothes, but can begin to wear some newborn and 0-3 month clothes. And she outgrew preemie diapers. Yay!!

At this point she finally started feeling like

a real baby and not a babydoll!

We call this one "4 Marinas"

Getting ready for her first party - 4th of July. All that effort to get ready tuckered her out!

Deep in thought ... er, something like that...

She's awake!

sleeping beauty ...

She finally decided to open her eyes!

and yes, she does look a little tipsy here :)

Her first dress! (Thanks Auntie J!)

Marina - first week photos

Here are first week photos of Little Marina. She slept about 20 hours a day during this time so while things were scary and we were concerned, she was pretty easy to take care of!This is one of the very first photos of Marina.

This is moments after I was wheeled out of surgery and got to hold Marina for the first time. You can tell by the look in my eyes that I'm heavily medicated!

This is her very first photo at home. Sleeping like an angel!

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These photos were taken after we'd been home for a few days and Mimi had arrived to help out.

You can see how small she is in comparison to her very first baby doll (thanks to Mimi!). Who knows why she's making that crazy face.

You can't tell if she's going to cry or fall asleep here.

Mimi giving Marina her first bottle.

Another photo showing her size ... a bottle of nailpolish seems so small but was pretty big compared to her! She's grown so much that I can barely remember her being this small!