Our last day of our trip was Friday July 11th. We left first thing Saturday to get back home so we wanted to make the most of our last full day. We had ONE thing on the agenda: THE BEACH!
This trip really brought out Kye’s silly side. I know a lot of mom’s get annoyed by the silliness of boys at this age but Kye is so rarely silly that I love it when that side comes out. He’s a pretty serious kid most of the time but I think he’s like his mama and just LOVES vacation mode. I know I’m my happiest self on vacations for sure!
Overall the week went pretty flawless with behavior. The big kids shared a room every night for sleep, but were split up at naps. They do VERY well with room sharing but it was the longest amount of time they’d have to share and that did pay a toll by the end of the week. They weren’t falling asleep as quickly as they do at home, they were awake earlier than usual most mornings, and we had a couple issues at night as well (one night we realized the exterior light in the hallway outside our condo was shining super bright right into their room and waking them up!). Sleep is crucial for so many things and I’m always reminded of WHY we place so much importance on our kids sleep during times when they don’t get enough of it.
Kye had some sleep issues on Thursday and Britt’s held off until Friday. The only real time either one of them got into “trouble” was when they were just overly tired. Kye was grouchy for our beach pics and Britt started disobeying me at the beach on Friday. With three kids it’s SO important that they obey. Zach was out in the water with Kye and I was watching both girls and gave Britt instructions and she disobeyed me (I told her NOT to go down to the water and she did it anyway). Seeing as we were in public I didn’t have a lot of options on how to handle it. Zach was still out in the water so I didn’t have back up. I told Britt she had to sit out. Man, missing out on stuff is a great tool for discipline!
She sat in her chair and BAWLED her eyes out. I talked to her and let her know that further discipline action would be taken if she chose to pitch a fit in public. She calmed down but did spend all her time in her chair throwing sand on herself. Smooth move girl haha it was ALL OVER HER by the time she was allowed to get up.
Sand Covered Britt!
The beach in St Augustine is SO perfect for families! TONS of hard sand to play and lots of spots where the water didn’t wash away so it was great “play sand.” We had a mission to build a super cool drip castle before our beach trip ended!
So glad Zach thought to get a legit shovel for the trip! It was so handy to dig holes to build things and keep everyone occupied and having FUN! I love this time together as we were ALL playing together as a family 🙂
Tess adores her big brother
In the past Britt has been all about following Kye and doing whatever he does but this trip she really did her own thing and had her own type of fun. It was neat to see them both exploring their own interests!
Finished results, not quite as awesome as we’d hoped but dealing with a busy baby crawling off every few seconds haha!
Beach Trip: SUCCESS!!!
We took our time that morning and were pretty late for naps. I love that Tess is flexible to handle it fine! We had decided to spend the afternoon at the pool so we wanted to enjoy as much beach time as we possibly could and that meant pushing afternoon naps a little later 🙂 During naps Zach and Kye went back out to the beach to boogie board some more just the two of them while the girls slept and I worked on party stuff!
When Tess woke up I enjoyed some sweet, sweet cuddle time and it reminded me of her very first trip (Labor Day for Zach’s 30th Birthday in Orlando). She’s grown and changed SO MUCH!
Love a good comparison pic! First vaca as a newborn vs last vaca as an infant 🙂
Zach and the big kids went out to clean off all the beach stuff and I enjoyed some solo time with Tess 🙂
Even though we have a pool in our backyard, our kids still LOVE to visit pools when we travel! At our old accommodations we’d hit the pool after the beach so Britt kept being upset about the lack of pool time this visit. We had some fun for awhile that last afternoon at the pool!
For dinner on our last night we did brinner. My husband is a man of many talents but cooking brinner is among the top of the list 😉 Dude has skills!!! I LOVE his “breakfast in a cup” (cheese grits, sausage and scrambled eggs mixed together). YUM.
I got busy packing up while Zach cooked and the kids helped prepare the meal. Kye is ALL about setting things up and truly enjoys being a helper!
His example has made Britt quite the helper too! They are awesome 🙂
So proud!
Kye really wanted to take some pictures before we ate dinner. Of course everything was ready and hot and none of us were really wanting to take the time for him to “set up” his scene for the photos he wanted. We compromised and let him use my phone to take a few pics. He really wanted some of Zach and I and I’m SO glad we did this. It’s such a perfect representation of our life. CRAZY mess all around us but we have each other 🙂
I love how you can see Britt in this one watching us so proudly 🙂
The condo had a guest book to sign so, of course, Kye wanted to fill it out.
He also took the time to write me a thank you note for our trip (including an awesome picture of me haha). It’s always a nice feeling to be appreciated 🙂
We had SUCH an awesome week and I’m SOOOO thankful to my sweet friend (you know who you are…I don’t want to advertise the hook up just in case haha) for helping us find the perfect accommodations for us. The condo was seriously so perfect and made our vacation even better than ever before! We had a BLAST and were all SO SAD to have to leave!!! It was great to have so much time to truly relax and just enjoy each other. It’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day stuff at home and not truly enjoy each moment. I soak up my family when we travel and it really is my favorite thing in the world to do 🙂
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