We all know that boys and girls are different.

Having a son and many of our friends have daughters and we have 4 nieces myself, I can see the difference.

Our recent vacation just magnified to us and those with us, how different boys and girls really are.

Example #1: Boys are rough. The evening we went out searching for crabs on the beach. Mark (2) and Brett (4) were armed with flashlights. We would spot them all over! Big and little ones!  When they would scurry away, sometimes near your feet, Brett would scream! I have to admit I kind of squirmed myself! Even though I knew they wouldn’t hurt me and how it was more afraid of us and was running for its life! I didn’t really want it to touch me either! Mark would try to run over and step on it! No kidding! Bernie would spot them and try to get the kids to come get a closer look. Everyone would circle around and Mark would just run right through the middle of group, stomping on anything that might have gotten in its way. Lucky for his little feet, those crabs were fast!

Mark is trying to GRAB the crab!

Here is Mark running right over the crab. Chasing it away as Brett is trying to look at it!

Example #2: Boys are physical. While on the beach, Mark’s favorite activity was to run and jump in and out of this large hole Bernie dug for him. He would try to throw sand around (not always at anyone in particular).

So while Mark is jumping in holes, Brett and her mom had built a sand wall and were decorating it with seashells they had collected! I tried to get Mark to go help them, I found a shell. I said, “Here Mark, go help Brett and her Momma decorate their castle.” Mark took the shell from me, looked and them and then just threw it at them! (we were too far away for him to hit them!) So much for decorating anything! At that point I realized it was probably best he didn’t help, he would probably just go over and knock it down! (and then giggle with pride!)

Here is Brett and her Momma, Laura, with their decorated sand wall with shells!

Mark is 'helping' the girls take down their shell wall. They were taking each shell out before they knocked the wall down. They were going to save the shells. Mark started to 'help' and before you know it he is just grabbing handfuls of sand and dumping it ALL in the bucket! What a helper!

Example #3: Boys don’t like affection. When we were leaving at the end of our week and saying good bye to everyone I told Mark to give Brett a hug. (afterall, they were best buds this week!) He actually listened to me and they both embraced for 1/2 a second, with arms stretched out around each other’s necks, it was so cute. Then as soon as they parted, he pushed her away…..what a typical boy!

Here Brett snagged a hug for a photo op. Had to be quick, he didn't let her hang on long!

Example #4: (Most) Boys don’t like to color. Brett wanted to help Mark color some of this Train Coloring Books. While she delicately picked out the colors for each train, Mark scribbled a few lines on one page, then began to ‘crash’ the crayons into each other. He would began throwing them across the room if I would have let him. I stopped that as soon as I saw that right arm rare back! Clarification A: As I type this I think about my nephew who seems to have come around with the coloring. Still not his favorite activity, but he will do a pretty good job and he use to have nothing to do with it. So maybe thats an age thing. Clarification B: Why does Mark even HAVE Thomas the Train Coloring book you ask? If he doesn’t like to color? Because his mommy is a girl and she is hoping if she keeps trying he will learn to like this easy, quiet activity!! lol!

Another fabulous reason we had a great vacation at the Outer Banks, NC….THE BEACH!!!

I can’t think of a better place to spend my free time. Mark LOVED the sand!

He buried his trains. I would build a sand castle and he would destroy it.

Who knew trains would be such great beach toys!

Bernie would dig a large hole and Mark loved to jump in and out of it and just push the sand in and out of the hole.

I loved staring at the ocean. What a cool feeling to be on the edge of the continent! Nothing but water as far as the eye can see! WOW!!! God is good! What an amazing creation!!

Searching for seashells, watching the kids in the water (not my kid though! lol), people watching is a whole other level on the beach!

The beach critters! Crabs, Sea turtles and birds!

One night, after dinner, we went on a little crab hunt. Brett and Mark were armed with flashlights and we had a great time! Half of the adults had never experienced this fun adventure. They were fun to find and fun to watch. The beach at night is very neat too.

We had to be careful to not let those seagulls sniff out Mark’s pretzel sticks or goldfish snacks while we were on the beach. Man those things can swarm a person if they think you have food! crazy!! But it was cool to be so close to the  birds.

Here Mark is running on the beach.

Brett & Mark playing together on the beach!

Top reason we had such a great time on vacation: No schedule.

Bernie and I both agreed that our favorite part of vacation was not having any agendas, schedules, or worries!

We began each morning with a trip to the beach. Mark played in the sand, I soaked up the sunshine and took in the sounds of the ocean. After lunch, Mark took his nap and we spent the afternoon by the pool, walking on the beach, playing tennis or even napping! Can’t ask for anything better!

The evenings were nice too. We sometimes went back out to the beach so Mark could play in the sand some more. Then we had mostly homecooked meals and then just hung out. Some of our evenings activities consisted of pool volleyball, hot tub, searching for crabs on the beach (with flashlights!), Catchphrase….

Morning on the beach

We are back! Still dusting the sand off our flip flops, but we are back! We enjoyed a nice week long vacation at the Outer Banks, NC. This was our 2nd time to go with the same group of friends. We went two years ago and stayed with 5 other couples, there was one little girl (Brett–2 years old)  and Mark was 3 months old. This time there was 4 other couples, Brett (4 years old), Mark (2 years old) Katie J (7 months old), Shelby (Brett’s sister–6 months old).

We had a great time for so many reasons.  Stay tuned to a variety of posts that stemmed from this week long hiatus…..

Here are a few highlight pics just taken with our smaller camera (not Bernie’s nice one!) Better ones to come!

Here is Mark, excited to be going to the Beach! (driving through the night!--Mark is WIDE awake!!)

Here we are watching the sunrise near Virginia Beach (9 hours into our trip through the night!)

Here is the beautiful house we stayed in! We are walking back from the beach.

This is a perfect example of the PERFECT weather we had most of the week!!!

Baby Katie is a happy girl!

All Smiles from Baby Shelby!!

Enjoying a poolside snack! Brett & Mark

Legoland California was a pretty neat place! Young or old, its fascinating!

Bernie took so many pictures we will have to include a slide show. There are many of just the neat structures that were built out of legos! I think kids ranging from 6-10 are probably the best age to take them. However, there were plenty of activities for Mark to do. The funny thing about a 2 year old is that you never really know which kid is going to to show up that day. The fun loving kid, the cranky kid, the needy kid, its really a total surprise each morning. So this day, Mark started off the day pretty apprehensive. And we were ‘those’ parents that were forcing our kid to ‘have fun’! We kept putting him on these rides that we thought he would enjoy. But because we got the cautions, moody Mark, he was NOT into the rides. Even some rides he cried until the ride actually started. I am sure we got some interesting looks from other riders!!

He did finally perk up after a ride on a train and the water area where it splashed up from the ground. He enjoy the playground area that he could climb around and run free from his stroller. All in all, it was a successful trip. I would like to take him back when he could stay the entire day and enjoy more of the rides. We even topped the day off by finding some Thomas the Train legos at the gift shop. Which completely thrilled him!!!

If you ever get the chance, I definitely recommend Legoland! This slideshow is kind of long, but Bernie took over 300 pictures! I narrowed down to about 75! There are so many neat things to show!

Sorry, I took a little hiatus from blogging, facebook and even email for about a week. I feel so behind!! lol!!

We just got back from Southern California! We had a family wedding to attend this past weekend. My parents, Mark, Bernie and I left last Tuesday very early and return late last night (Sunday). I have SOO many great pictures to share. But between catching up at work, laundry, cleaning the house, adjusting to the time change, catching up on sleep I haven’t even had time to go through all the pics!!

So I thought I would try to share our experiences one post at a time!

“Air Pane” as Mark would say…over and over again!

Here is the Burnett Family on Mark’s First Airplane Ride!!

He was pretty much in aw the entire first leg (Louisville to ATL–about an hour and half)

Mark LOVED to watch the airplanes and the little carts out the airport window! This initial excitement and newness ran out right before we started the 4 hour flight from ATL to Orange County.  One positive note: the pressure changes did not seem to bother Mark’s ears. I had some suckers ready and sippy cups prepared, but he never seemed phased!

The flight was packed (i.e. no empty seats) and Mark was in our laps. It was his nap time and he was fighting sleep! So despite the little toys we packed–he was NOT a happy flyer!  He cried himself to sleep for 30 minutes (completely uncharacteristic of Mark’s normal behavior).

After about 45 minutes into the much needed nap (we got him up at 5:30 am that morning)  he was comfortable in Bernie’s lap,  the girl who was in the window seat had to go to the bathroom. So we all got up and tried our best to keep him asleep, but it didn’t work. He woke up and cried for the NEXT 30 minutes putting himself to sleep again.

Poor guy, it was a hot, long flight!!  I just knew our fellow passengers were wishing we were not on that flight! I had really tried to prepare for any situation that might come up. I guess even the most thought out plans don’t always go your way.

1st problem: Seating Arrangements. Once a child turns 2 you HAVE to purchase them their own seat. I thought we were pretty lucky to have Mark just 20 days from his 2nd birthday. We would save about $300! I had hoped with traveling with 4 adults and one child he would be fine!  I also thought if Bernie and I had seats on the ends of the aisle and my parents were in the seats directly across from us he could be passed around and even stand in the aisle if he needed to. NOT so!!

We should have arranged for us all three to be in the same row and the 4th in the chair in front of me. Mark did NOT want to sit in anyone else’s lap but Bernie or I’s. He kept trying to kick and push on the chair in front of us.

2nd Problem: Entertainment. Mimi had been so sweet to have prepackaged a bunch of little activities and toys to help keep Mark occupied. She had a new activity for him every 15 minutes! Books, jumping frogs, trains, magazines, crayons, tape, etc, etc! Thank you Mimi!! Unfortunately for us and the rest of our fellow passengers, those did not keep his attention for very long either. The 2nd flight was a large enough plane that they did have those cool tvs on the back of the head rest on the chair in front you. The TV did have a  Nickelodeon channel…unfortunately for us he would not the try headphones on and simply watching TV kept his attention for about 2 minutes. Then he loved to turn the TV off and on, off and on…so much it rebooted itself at one point. I thought he had broken it! He also liked to push the TV screen in and out of its position (it tilts a little so you can see it better). Which also disturbed the man in front of us!

On the first leg of the trip we didn’t have those nice TVs, but we did have a window seat.  Mark’s favorite activity was to open and close the shade to the window. Usually saying OPEN, over and over again (even when he meant close) and it would slam rather loudly!

3rd Problem: I was worried about my fellow passengers. Every time Mark made a peep Bernie and I were very aware of the other passengers. We did not want to be that family with a screaming kid making everyone else miserable. We tried to sush him, he tried to help him ‘whisper’, we kept singing songs (very quietly), trying to distract him with any method possible (trips to the bathroom, free peanuts, things out the window, you name it, we tried it!) During Mark’s 2nd crying fight I found myself praying that these people all had kids and/or grandkids of their own and would be understanding. I just hoped they were thinking positive thoughts and not wishing we would get removed from their plane!  But then I had a realization that we were trying everything we could. We are good parents and the other people were just going to have to get over it! I was stressing myself out worrying about other people AND my own child. I have to just let it go!

Lesson #1: No matter how much you plan, how much you try to think of everything….it doesn’t go the way you hope! (actually….I think that could be a motto for parenting in general!) I do NOT recommend flying with a 2 year old in your lap….if you can afford it, its completely worth every penny having your toddler have his OWN seat!!

…………………………………………..more of our California adventures coming soon!