2015 Beach Trip // Seacrest, Florida

The family road trip is a very real memory from my childhood.  Growing up in Wisconsin, with grandparents who lived in Tennessee we routinely made the 10+ hour trip down South.  The packed lunches, games, fighting, points of interests, and of course the memories are still fresh in my mind.

Up until this point, the furthest road trip we had taken with the kids was to San Antonio or Austin, both only about three hours away, and in my opinion, ones that didn't really fall into the classic road trip category.

However, this year we decided to go all in, and make a road trip to Florida for a family beach trip, complete with an overnight stop in Baton Rouge to visit friends.  I was just as excited for the road trip as I was for the trip to the beach.  And of course, I was super prepared.  I bought special bags just to hold food and games for the kids.  I bought a special box to go over the console to hold all of the things we needed at a moments notice.  There wasn't a thing that was not in a bag in our trunk.  We were super prepared.

Saturday night we were all packed and ready to go first thing in the morning.  We went to bed with visions of drive-thru meals, souvenirs and gas station bathroom breaks in our head.

Early Sunday morning we woke up and headed out for Baton Rouge.

The kids were absolute dreams, and kept themselves pretty entertained.  I can't say I was super surprised.  With all the different ways to keep kids entertained these days, (iPads, movies, and of course old-school pen and paper), I would be pretty annoyed if they were bored.

Isla even balked at the idea of playing classic road trip games, although we got her to participate a bit, and Jordan and I had a great time!

Before we left, Jordan and I downloaded the podcast Serial from NPR.  It was the

perfect

way to pass the time, and the five hours to Baton Rouge went by in no time.

That afternoon and night, we had a fabulous time catching up with good friends Brian and Jamie Jones.  They were the perfect hosts, and despite Holden having a bad night of sleep, we were so happy to have gotten the chance to stop and see them.  The kids had a great time catching up with each other, and the big kids ended the night with a sleepover in their oldest child, Avery's room.

Early

the next day we left for Seacrest.  Remember, I told you Holden had a bad night of sleep.  It was a double edged sword, we were tired, but the early start got us to to the beach sooner than we had hoped.

We pulled onto 30A shortly after 1pm, and after getting settled, headed right down to the beach.

The next week was full of sandy fingers, wet eyelashes, beach cruisers, brown skin, sand in our toes, salty kisses lazy mornings

and

afternoons, mid-day drinks, okay... mid-morning drinks and everything else the beach is supposed to be about.  It was absolutely fabulous.

It was so nice to have so many of Jordan's side of the family there to hang out together; We had Jordan's brother Taylor, and his family, Hava, Emerson and the newest addition Landry, of course there was Nana and Papaw, and Jordan's Aunt Alice.  It seems like a lot of people, but the house we rented accommodated us all with no problem.  We didn't feel like we were right on top of each other, and it was

right

on the beach with a private boardwalk out to the clearest waters I've ever seen in Florida.

The house was in Seacrest Beach, which is right in between Alys Beach/Rosemary, and Seaside/Watercolor.  For us it was

perfect.  

We were close enough to anything we would want or need, (we rode our bikes everywhere), yet it felt so much more low-key and relaxed than the more busy parts of 30A.  We will definitely be going back!

After a couple issues with the sand and Holden's mouth, he realized he preferred the ocean over the beach.  After that, it was all we could do to get him out of the water...

Isla was excited to try our boogie boarding for the first time.  The first couple of tries were a bit rough, but after some practice, our girl was a natural.  

Bike rides were a big part of our trip, and one of our first stops was Charlies Donut Truck.  This place is AHHHHmazing.  And although you have to get there early to get the full menu, (once they are out of a flavor, they are out), all the options are amazingly decadent and delicious.  Thank goodness we biked to get these.  We may have worked off a quarter of the calories that we ate!  

One of our favorite places to go was The Hub.  It's this outdoor area with a bunch of different restaurants, and bars.  There were places for the kids to run around and play and plenty of activities to keep them and us entertained.  We absolutely LOVED it, and were there nearly every day either picking up food, or hanging out.  

The trip was wonderful, great company and beautiful scenery.  It was a great way to mark the middle of Summer, and sit back relax, and enjoy time with our families.  I'm especially grateful to Nana, Papaw and Aunt Alice for spending such quality time with our babies.  They appreciate it and love you more than you know!  The night out and subsequent ride home were extremely appreciated as well!  We love you guys!  

Of course any big blog post wouldn't be complete without "our trip according to instagram"...  

If you made it this far into this post, I'm guessing you're either family, or someone who's bored at work... The below video is pretty long, and I'm posting it mostly for self-preservation of our trip, but hey - if you're family, bored at work

OR

if you just wanna watch it, then give it a looksie!