It’s a well known fact that Casey LOVES her birthday. This year though? It’ll be a tough one to top. We had an epic family party for her, she got to celebrate her legit bday at Disney, and then Keeli surprised her with a weekend away to the beach the following weekend! (Not to mention the following weekend she went to the beach again with Jordan’s fam and the weekend after that we had a girl’s trip to Disney! Whew! Birthday MONTH!)
Keeli and Casey have been friends for awhile now and I’ve always liked Keeli when we’ve hung out. It surprised me when she called and told me her plans to surprise Casey and invited me to go along! It really meant a LOT to me to be included and was so thoughtful of her and I’m SO thankful I got to go. Casey was SUPER surprised and it was such an awesome weekend and really helped me get to know Keeli better and I’m truly so thankful for her friendship!
Moms on a getaway trip: stop at Zaxby’s and still order kids meals 😉
The trip was to Daytona Beach where we stayed at a super nice timeshare. We left on Friday and didn’t come back until Sunday so it was a full weekend which was awesome. Casey hasn’t really ever left Carter with Jordan solo for that long of a time period so it was good for Jordan and Carter to have that bonding. It was also good for Casey to get away. We know as moms we tend to always be MOM so it’s important to reconnect with ourselves and there is no better way to achieve that than some quality girl time on a road trip! While I LOVE getaways, I have found that often the journey is just as much fun (if not even more so) than the destination. As long as I’m not driving then I love me some road trips! I think the deepest conversations happen on the road and this proved to be true for BOTH the girl’s trips I took this month!
At check-in Keeli and I were cracking ourselves up! It is so funny how people hear “moms getaway trip” and immediately recommend the best local bars? We were more excited for the ice cream 😉
They even had a goodie bag for the Birthday Girl!
McD has THE BEST iced coffee. Thanks Keeli for a new addiction 😉
It was seriously SO AWESOME not having any agenda. It was also super fun to be on a trip like that with a newer friend. We had so many great talks getting to know each other better! The beach was beautiful and it was such a pretty time of year to go. I’ve never visited the beach in Sept?!? We hung out by the pool for a few hours. We all face timed with our kids and mine were mega jealous at our pool spot overlooking the beach!
I’m not cool enough to go for the water slide 😉
For dinner we walked down to Bubba Gump. Our condo was in a great location near a lot of restaurants but if y’all know me then you know I get CREEPED OUT in potentially dangerous situations (and by potentially dangerous I mean walking from a store to my car haha). I was pretty nervous the whole walk and went ahead and let them know I’d pay a dang taxi to get us back after we ate! Thankfully we saw a security guard guy and talked to him before we left and he agreed to watch us walk and keep us safe 🙂
Dinner was really fun! Casey and I love interacting with people and I know Keeli totally loved it too 😉 She better get used to us and our ability to embarrass our friends bahaha! The waiter DID tell me he could tell I was the “older sister.” Um. NOT. COOL. I was a tad intimated on this trip because I am 3 years older than the other girls. And I have 2 more kids than they do. But I’m totally still cool 😉
We stayed up super late talking and it was SO awesome to sleep in the next day! I slept on the pull out couch and let them have the bed and kinda lucked out that first night (however 2 nights in a row on that thing wasn’t such a smart idea) b/c they woke up earlier and I just kept on sleeping 🙂 I never understood people who went on vacation and talked about how much sleep they got. Hello. You can sleep at home. And then I had a kid. And then two more. And now? Sleep on vaca is amazing!
Tess had her first pancake!
Our agenda for the day was again: nothing! We took our precious time and enjoyed laying out at the beach looking through celebrity magazines and talking. Man. Beach trips with adults only are a TOTALLY different ball game than with kids. It was SO relaxing!
We all contributed to some lunch food and my husband was amazing and bought us “fancy turkey” for our sandwiches. I text him a pic to let him know it was awesome 😉
Does anyone else find it soooo annoying that virgin drinks cost almost the same price as the ones with alcohol???
We had some elevator issues when we left the beach and decided to go hit up a froyo place instead. Again…it was a tad bit sketchy when we first got out but we ended up being fine 😉 I guess I do fit in the “big sister” role huh? I was all about some safety! This froyo place we went to was “pet friendly” and had stuff for dogs to eat. So. Weird.
Keeli changed her headlight. Um. What? I thought you had to take your car into some sort of shop for someone to do that? I was blown away impressed haha
When Mama’s away Daddy makes feasts 😉
For dinner we got ready and went down a pier to eat at Joe’s Crab Shack. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten at one before? But omg it was THE BEST experience. We basically owned the place by the end of the night haha. I’m surprised Keeli was still okay being seen with us 😉 It was PACKED but the Birthday Girl knows how to make an entrance and draw people in. Someone found us seats at the bar within a few minutes and then soon after they had a table cleared for us and we’d make like 5 friends. There were SO many hilarious moments that night. We laughed so, so hard and seriously didn’t want to leave. It was one of those experiences that probably won’t be repeated and it was the type of thing where our husbands didn’t think it was half as funny as we did haha.
I already liked Keeli prior to the trip but finding out her love of a bargain made me love her even more! I’m not gonna lie, I’m alllll about some free food. We had coupons for free appetizers and our new buddies let us get more than one for our table. Plus they brought us a HUGE dessert for free. And I think our drinks were free too? It was legit the most free food I’ve ever gotten at a single meal. We ended up making friends with the manager too and he was hilarious. We saw a customer cussing him out and made him come over and fill us in on the dirt. I can’t imagine working in a customer service situation. Some people are SO RUDE. The dude was mad b/c of how loud the music was! On a Saturday night. At Joe’s Crab Shack. For real?!?!
This random waitress came by to sing Happy Birthday to Casey. Nope, not awkward at allll (here’s a video)
Keeli and I were watching for moral support, we let Casey break it down 😉
Free dessert…with free ice cream on the side 😉
Daytona treated the birthday girl right…fireworks!
You can’t beat that!
We really wanted to go into one of those little beach shops and get some of the bikini coverups to be funny but of course the one we picked didn’t carry them. At least they had some swwwwwweet squid hats!
We were up even later that night and didn’t sleep quite as well as the night prior! We miiiiiight have done a couple DubSmash videos. I had def brought my iPod on the trip and you know that beast is loaded down with some hits! We couldn’t resist a little Destiny’s Child action along with some old school TLC!
I loved waking up to seeing a pic of my amazing hubby at church with my babies!
This trip was perfectly timed for me as I nursed Tess for the last time the night before we left. I felt like a few days with me not at home would be best for her with the weaning process. She did GREAT for Zach and I did fine too! I did notice the pain starting to set in on the last day so I busted out the cabbage cleavage 😉
I def missed my hubby when it came time to load the car haha Men are handy to have around 😉
We took our time and stopped to shop a little at the outlets in St Augustine. None of us really found much but we totally enjoyed our turkey sandwiches in the mall food court haha. Cheap and no shame 😉 We stopped by an McD on the way for one last pic and one last iced coffee!
It was SUCH a great time! Of course anytime I’m with Casey is awesome but leaving the trip with a deeper bond with Keeli was so great too. I’m thankful to have been included in such an awesome birthday celebration! Maybe it’ll be a yearly thing 😉 I wouldn’t complain! HUGE thanks again to Keeli for providing the fun and for the invite!
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