The first trip in 2017
The second trip - in 2018
Max and Lucy continued the tradition they started last year of having a sleepover and watching a movie before bed. Last year, they had their sleepover in Lucy's room so he invited her to his room for this year's pre-vaca sleepover.
We got them out of his bed and into the van at close to midnight to meet up with the other HHI-bound minivan!
They did great in the car - slept well in the night and watched a few movies when it was too bright out to sleep any more.
Saturday
We'd pulled out of Jeff's driveway at 12:18am and pulled into Stack's, a pancake restaurant, for breakfast at exactly 9:30am.
We were all happy to get out of the car and stretch out!
As we were getting closer, the kids liked looking out the windows and seeing vaction-y sights. Whenever he spotted a palm tree, Max kept yelling, "palm-palm trees!"
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| Had to get a picture of him with a "pal palm tree!" |
Once we finished breakfast, we headed to our place but we couldn't check in yet. We went straight to the pool area, got changed and dove in!
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| Spotting a lizard climbing on the fence |
The moms went straight to Kroger while the dads and kids unpacked and hung out...and by "hung out" I mean that luckily the kids stayed inside and rested while the dads drank too much and taunted a gator in the pond in our backyard. Do you see his face? Because apparently Jeff didn't see it at first when he waded in to fish out golf balls...
Once we got back from Kroger and unloaded, we made spaghetti for dinner, sent the kids upstairs and watched a bit of a movie before heading to bed ourselves.
The boys served up their favorite vacation snack - mini marshmallows and mini chocolate chips. This year was the first time Ellie slept in the "kids room" like a big girl!
Jeff cooked breakfast for everyone on Sunday morning to get the first full day of vaca off to a great start! We ate breakfast, packed some lunches for later and headed to the beach!
We stayed there all day for a perfect day of fun-in-the-sun.
Last year Lucy felt like it was a tight squeeze to sit in the attached carrier with her brother or cousin. So this year, now that she's become a pretty good bike rider, we brought her bike. So she got to ride alongside us to and from the beach!
Before we'd left, Lucy put some hair chalk in Luke's hair. After a dip in the ocean, it started running down his face a little, giving him a little green mustache!
At one point, I spotted a jellyfish really close to the shore. It was cool and scary at the same time! I followed it for a bit and showed it to Jeff and then he noticed a bunch of them and went to grab a bucket to capture them. Turns out they were dead and a bunch of them tend to wash ashore at that certain time of day. Cool sight, though!
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| Super sillies! |
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| They didn't build this but spotted it and wanted their picture taken with it |
We all got showers once we finally went back home - and then the kids played on the deck for a bit. They found a very tiny frog and captured the poor little guy.
They took turns holding it and Lucy was really excited to hold him - until he started hopping around in her hand, freaking her out!
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| Mission Impossible: Getting a decent photo of all 4 of them |
We picked up pizza from Dough Boys (a pizza place we'd also ordered from in the past) and after dinner, the grownups played euchre for a bit before bed.
Monday
In the morning, the kids played some card games of their own!
After cards and breakfast, we got ready and hit the beach again.
We didn't pack a lunch this time so we didn't stay quite as long as the day before.
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| Max had so much fun karate chopping and kicking the waves! |
After lunch, the dads went to play golf - they played on the course where we stayed.
After lunch and a rest, the kids & mamas headed across the parking lot to the pool. The kids wore their matching lobster swimsuits I'd gotten at Old Navy - cuteness overload! Oh and the girls had matching coverups, too (from The Children's Place).
The pool was more crowded this year than it's been in year's past...but still just as fun! And the daddies met up with us at the pool after playing golf.
After swimming and playing a bit, we went back across the street for dinner - we grilled out burgers and dogs.
Silly little sharks in their matching pjs Ema picked up from The Children's Place.
Matching kids makes me happy.
The girls were matching, too - also Children's Place pjs.
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| As in years past, Lucy set up a room for her AG dolls in one of the closets! |
Tuesday
By Tuesday morning, the provisions were running low and the moms needed to make another Kroger run. Meanwhile, the dads and the kids splashed around in the pool.
That afternoon, we headed to Harbor Town for an adventure.
Last year, we did a pirate cruise but Jeff & Ellie stayed behind to nap. The other kids have all talked about it numerous times over the past year and really wanted to do it again - with Ellie - so we definitely booked that.
Max didn't want to have a pirate mustache / beard painted on his face (which was a bummer because they're so funny and cute! But Luke's pirate facial hair did not disappoint!) but he liked wearing the vest and belt - and of course all of them needed a sword!
They practiced their sword fighting before we climbed aboard - and listened to all of the pirate girl's rules.
Last year, Dave was chosen to "hide" the map from all of the little pirates on board - by sitting on it. This year, we were all excited when Jeff was chosen!
Once the kids realized what was going on, they all got to beat on him with their swords! Good times!
It got extremely hot out at sea so we were all anxious to cool off with an ice cream treat!
Next, we played for a while at the playground.
It was hot, of course, but there was a lot of shade and the kids had fun swinging, playing on the teeter-totter and climbing.
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| Look at that pirate facial hair!! <3 |
Next up on our afternoon adventure - we headed over toward Shelter Cove for dinner. We found a restaurant (on a golf-course) called Big Jim's that seemed family-friendly and didn't have a wait. Three of the four kids fell asleep in the car so we let them snooze a bit before heading inside.
It was American cuisine and nothing too special but it definitely did the trick!
After dinner, we parked in Shelter Cove to go check out some family-friendly activities we'd heard about from other HHI vacationers. Almost immediately, the kids spotted a little sand art activity that they wanted to do...they really enjoyed it.
As soon as they finished, they spotted the sno-cones and really needed one!
Lucy saw some people doing hair wraps and begged to have one...
They were pretty expensive - you had to pay by inch, I think - definitely by the length of the hair and she's got very long hair!
I hem-hawed around but finally decided to let her do it because it's such a vaction-y thing to do.
While she sat patiently for the lady (who worked very quickly!), Max went over to the bounce houses with Dave to bounce out some energy!
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| She LOVED it! |
We listened to Shannon Tanner play some music / sing some songs but soon after the hair wrap was complete, we headed home.
The Meyers family decided to go for a night swim that evening - another thing Lucy had been begging for - and Max captured another frog on the way over.
We spotted a giant frog over there - Max didn't pick this one up, though!
Wednesday
The next day, we headed back to the beach for the day, again packing our lunches so we could stay there all day. Lucy riding her bike on the beach was one of the cutest things I've ever seen! I took a bunch of pics of her while riding my own bike - surprisingly, I didn't fall off!
It was low tide when we arrived that day - for the first time all week. Last year, it was low tide every day and the kids played in "the little ocean" just as much as they played in the "big ocean."
Later in the afternoon, a fisherman down the beach a bit from us got a lot of attention when he caught a stingray! Quite the crowd gathered around to watch and we saw a pretty big stingray splashed out of the water a few times! It was pretty cool to see...and the guy wrestled around with his fishing pole for quite a long time before finally cutting the line and letting the stingray loose.
That night we ordered pizza from a place called Giuseppi's.
After dinner, Lucy and I took a short walk over to the pool for a quick photo shoot.
The kids watched a little tv in the living room before bed but then we decided - in order to encourage all of them to actually fall asleep at a decent time instead of staying awake arguing / talking / playing / calling for parents - that Lucy & Max would go to sleep in our room while Luke & Ellie went to sleep in the kids' room. Once Dave and I went up to bed, we carried our sleeping kids across the hall to their proper bunk bed.
Thursday
The next morning, the dads golfed again. The kids played on the deck with bubbles and I tried again to get a good pic of all of them...
After that, we went over to the pool.
When the dads finished golfing, they headed over and the moms tagged out to go do some shopping at the outlet mall.
We went to Auntie Anne's for a snack - our favorite part of our shopping adventure! - then did some shopping before picking up dinner from a BBQ place called Bullie's.
That night, after the kids went to bed, we played a card game called Nertz - it used to be a very popular game in our family that none of us had played in a loooong time!
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| This little guy was wore out! He fell asleep on the couch watching tv |
For our last day, we packed lunches and headed to the beach to maximize our time spent there.
When Ema and I were shopping, I found Dave a pair of the lobster swim trunks at Old Navy! Another matcher to add to the mix!
We brought our kites with us. Lucy and Max got new ones this year and Max's was really cool - it was a wiggly robot who wiggled so much up in the sky - very cool!
Lucy's was a ladybug and Luke had his awesome monkey kite again. Unfortunately, Ellie's Elsa kite bit the dust this year.
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| Everybody say "lobster!" |
Once back at our place, I took another stab at a group photo:
Later in the afternoon, we took a bike ride to get some souvenirs - and to get some ice cream!
Max and Ellie went to town on their blue ice cream! They were a disaster!
The guys just picked up dinner from McDonald's on the way home from fueling up the vans. The kids ate while the grownups started packing.
That evening, the four of us went to the beach to say goodbye...
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| Goodbye, beach! |
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| So sad to say goodbye... |
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| But so happy we had a great vacation with our family and had great weather all week |
At 12:15, we scooped these 4 sleeping babes out of their bunks and loaded them into the cars.
We made 3 stops on the way back and got home at 9:38am - another successful vacation!
Until next time!
