The Journey of Parenthood…

St Augustine Arrival and Putt-Putt

Every year I look forward to our St Augustine trip for the 4th. But this year? Omg I was SO PUMPED. Last year was a bit rough due to Britt being so young and us coming to the realization that our family is too big to fit into a small hotel room anymore. It was a learning year and this year was gonna be the year that benefited from all the learning we did last summer 🙂 

I hunted and hunted for a perfect new place to stay and ended up booking at the same hotel we usually stay at! We booked their largest “room” and it was A-MAZING. It was still a one bedroom but instead of it being legit one room, it was a separate bedroom, a dining room, a living room, and a full kitchen. It also had a HUGE closet that was not inside the bedroom which fit Britt’s pack and play PERFECTLY!!! And it was still dog friendly so we saved on kennel costs and were able to bring the dogs along. We walked in and instantly KNEW we found our go-to place to stay for what we hope is many years to come (unless we suddenly strike it rich and buy our dream beach house haha). 

This year the 4th of July was on a Thursday and we decided to go down the day prior. The people are SO great at the hotel and told us we could check in early. We went ahead and left first thing that morning and made it to the place just in time for lunch! I hurried up (the only negative about our new room…a MASSIVE staircase to walk up to get there!) and got the kids going with lunch while Zach unloaded the car (and got an intense workout with those stairs!). 

Britt’s first time eating off legit plates and sitting in a regular chair…it didn’t last long thankfully!

Kye wanted to eat at the BIG table in the screened in porch area!

I love me a traditional hotel bed pic of Zach and the kids!!!

After lunch we let the kids play while we got unpacked and settled and then put them down for naps. Growing up a favorite travel tradition of mine was being allowed to jump on hotel beds so, of course, Kye was pumped and got to jumping right away!

With the full kitchen this year we fully planned on making this trip as cheap as possible by eating in the room often. We LOVE St. Augustine but have never really found that many places that we LOVE to eat at? A lot of the food seems to be over priced and the restaurants don’t tend to be super family friendly. So really the whole eating in the room idea sounded like a solid plan to us both! Zach went during naps and did grocery shopping for our stay. I brought a lot of stuff from home as it’s not really saving money if you buy stuff at the store that you already had, ya know? 

The weather wasn’t looking too good for us on the trip so we decided to use our “bonus day” to knock out something that rain would ruin: putt-putt. Since they let us check-in so early we had the whole afternoon free so why not go ahead and get it out of the way while it was good weather?!?! When the kids woke up we loaded ’em up with sunscreen and headed to get our golf on!

Such a good Daddy!!!

Notice he STILL chooses to have a pink ball 🙂

Pointing at all the animals we saw (lots of birds and fish!)

I was VERY impressed with Kye this year! We’ve never played a full 18 holes of putt-putt. It’s always too hot to last very long and Kye typically gets bored with it well before it’s over. This time Kye was hardcore about playing the entire course and took it very, very seriously. He legit PLAYED every hole. None of that typical kid who just throws the ball into the hole type stuff (What you never did that as a kid? I mean I know I sure as heck did!). 

I love that Zach is so into “fun stuff” like this. I mean I don’t mind putt-putt but it’s def not in my element. We’re able to save some money and just pay for them to play while I watch and take pics. This time around I had Britt to handle too though so it got a bit tricky. While Kye may have been ready to handle a full course…Britt was not. We were out there WAY longer than we’ve ever been since Kye was born. Not only did we play more holes but each hole also took longer since both Zach and Kye were so intent on playing legit games. Poor Britt. It was hot. And boring for her. And she got over it very quickly. I don’t think she was any worse than Kye probably would have been at her age if we had forced him to stay for so long though. I kept reminding Zach of that…because it’s easy to forget how much we did totally cater to all of Kye’s needs whereas now with Britt we can’t do that since we DO have to think about Kye too. She had to sacrifice in that situation in order for Kye to be able to enjoy his game and I’m okay with that. He sacrifices all the time for her for stuff (like her naps back when she was a newborn and I had to be so hardcore about them!) so it’s okay for her to sacrifice for him now and then too!!!

Even though I knew she was doing a nice thing and putting her brother’s needs before her own…she didn’t quite grasp that concept. She got pretty whiney and then pretty loud…it got intense there a few times and by the end of it all she was downright pitching a FIT. I spent a lot of my time those last few holes wrestling a two year old for sure!!! Hopefully next year she’ll be more into the game and less into making a scene 😉

Zach coaches him up!

Family Tunnel Pic!

My view.

Kye’s first hole in one!!!! YAY!!!

Britt lost the privilege of being in the traditional last hole pics!

The boys even kept score!

When we got back to the room Zach took over bath duty while I finished up dinner. The other negative about the room other than the stairs was the lack of a bathtub. The room we used to always stay in only had a shower too so we expected it but it’s still a hassle. Kye and Zach just jumped in the shower together for Kye’s “bath” and Zach used a storage tub we had brought with our beach toys in it as Britt’s bathtub. It got the job done!

Feeding her baby before we ate dinner 🙂

We had a straight up FEAST and it was AMAZING. After the success of our crock pot cube steak when we went to Disney, Zach and I both have been craving that junk so I made it again that morning to eat that night for our dinner. I made instant mashed potatoes in the room, heated up butter beans from home, Zach made our favorite fresh corn, and he bought some bangin’ rolls at the store (we NEVER have dinner roles so this was like Christmas morning to us!). We were all super, super excited about it!!! It doesn’t take much to get us jacked up huh? 😉

You can tell in Kye’s eyes that he totally had a spanking just before dinner. It was the oddest thing. We had been talking all about how much fun the trip was going to be for so long and then he was just in this FUNK. He was being rude and disrespectful and we let it slide a little because who wants to start of vaca dishing out spankings, right? (I mean Britt got a TON but she’s at that age where she needs them, Kye rarely gets them ever!) Finally Zach spanked him and gah it was like a thousand times better with him instantly! I guess it’s true that sometimes kids just need a good spanking to get them back into shape! He was SO sweet and wonderful and back to normal Kye. And he stayed that way the rest of the trip! It was the only spanking he had to have so I’m glad it was over with on night one 🙂

For dessert Kye got one donut and another dinner roll. I think the kid at FOUR rolls?!?! Seriously…the fist pump was for the bread and not the donut haha!

After dinner it was time for more bed jumping!!! I got the kitchen cleaned up as I didn’t want to be making a bunch of noise right when the kids went down for the night. I walked in to find both kids and Zach playing on the bed together. It was so cute! Kye had made up a game called “5 Little Monkeys” and they would go through the whole storyline while they jumped then when the part came when the dr said “no more monkeys jumping on the bed” Zach would make them fall. They thought it was HILARIOUS (and it made me SUPER nervous that someone was going to get hurt!). 

Finished the night out with some cuddles and story time 🙂

It was an awesome, awesome start to the trip. Having my little family together is so special. I know I get to have it every night at home but not having the hustle and bustle of home life is AMAZING. I’m able to just relax and soak in each moment together!!! Zach and I straight up chilled and started Season 3 of Parks and Rec (spoiler alert: we watched the ENTIRE SEASON on this trip! Like 20 something episodes as well as all the deleted scenes AND bonus features!). Get ready for like 1,000 pictures tomorrow in my first beach post from the trip!!!

Emily Parker
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