Our final day of the trip and NONE of us were ready to leave. I felt like we had such a great routine going and I loved just being away from home and relaxing with my family. I know from an outsider perspective it would seem strange that I’d want to go on a vacation with a newborn…it was a lot of work! All the packing and unpacking and really the “mom” duties don’t stop on vacation. Cooking, cleaning, etc is all still very much part of my day. But being away from home, even while having those responsibilities, just allows me to RELAX! I don’t have some crazy long to-do list. My mind isn’t going over 1,000 things at once. I can just breathe and just enjoy my family. I was a little worried about how a trip would go with her being so young but it really went awesome! This trip only added to my want for a vacation home haha 🙂
Heading to the pool with Daddy!
I think a good theme for this trip should be “accidents.” We accidentally got locked out of the connecting room. The kids accidentally did that magic trick that ruined the main door to our condo. Britt accidentally pooped in the pool. Mrs. Charlotte accidentally lost her wedding band. And Britt? Well Britt was purely accident prone the whole week! Child kept tripping and falling and was requiring more bandaids than I think we’ve used her whole life combined. She was a hot mess! It got to be where we’d all laugh whenever she started crying haha. It was literally one thing after another!
Last day to enjoy the pool!
Sweet Daddy
Lunchables to close out the trip!
The sleep situation worked out pretty well. We had a rough couple of days the first days of the trip with Tess. I realized her room just wasn’t dark enough and once I made it darker she slept way better. I also think it’s just an adjustment when being in a new room and in a new bed! I had gotten this Fisher Price Bassinet for her for our room. But she only lasted in our room for less than one nap haha so we decided to use it for travel. It’s easier to bring along than a pack and play because it folds completely flat. It also goes up to 28 lbs which must be some kind of joke. Britt’s not even 28 lbs and she’s WAY too long to fit in this beast!
Tess got her own room and it worked out b/c there was just a fold out couch in it. So no bed in the way! We like to make sure there is a VERY clean walk area for us for those middle of the night feedings! I used the couch as her changing table and it was a pretty good routine for our stay!
Tess decided to celebrate the end of our trip by rolling over for the first time!!!
Proud Dad!
After I fed Tess at 4 the big kids and I walked down to the activity center to check it out. They had seen some games there and really wanted to get to play them so I told them as long as the games weren’t too expensive we’d be able to 🙂 The walk was so nice and we saw so many animals!
These ducks, legit, tried to eat us.
Every time we walked down the sidewalk the entire week a ton of little lizards would scatter. Seriously with every step you took you’d see lizards! I loved it!
By this point Kye was Mr. Knowledgeable about the resort. Since I hadn’t been to the activity center he wanted to lead the way. He did a great job being the leader 🙂
The games were, surprisingly, very cheap! It was a token situation and it was 1 token = 25 cents which I thought was good?!?! I let each kid get 4 tokens. It was the perfect amount of time for us to play before we had to walk back to eat dinner.
One of our tokens got eaten by the machine (doesn’t that always happen?!?!) and they gave us a quarter instead as change so we used it in a candy machine and I let each kid have a couple Runts to try for the first time!
Reading a story together 🙂
I love seeing my older children being so sweet with their little sister!
Crazy Boy Kye 😉
That evening we ate leftovers for dinner and Zach bathed the kids at 6 while I nursed. Then I wanted to end the trip with a chance for me and the big kids to have some fun together just the three of us. They had another resort activity that evening but we decided not to attend. It was s’mores which would have been fun but Britt actually doesn’t like s’mores (I know what you are thinking: who doesn’t like s’mores?!?!) and I didn’t think it’d be good to have Tess out in the heat and around a smokey fire, ya know? So instead the big kids and I just went on another walk but this time to get some special treats 🙂
They had an ice cream machine in the lobby so I let the kids pick out one ice cream treat to share. They got the same ones we had when we went to the beach! Those were such great memories and now I think we’ll always associate m&m ice cream cookie sandwiches with that vacation 😉
Zach and I also had a treat but we saved ours for when we watched Big Brother together after the kids were in bed 🙂 We all had a great nights sleep and decided to leave the next day after Tess ate at 10. That way we’d stop to feed her at 1 and for sure make it home before her 4:00 feeding. MUCH better timing than on the way there!
We had some sweet snuggles on the big master bed before hitting the road!
Baby Doll is ready to go!
The ride home went MUCH more smoothly! NO cars on fire 😉 We stopped at Zaxby’s and the kids and I ate while Zach fed Tess the bottle. When I was done eating we switched and I finished the bottle while he ate with the big kids. It went great! Tess was so used to getting a bottle out by the pool that she wouldn’t drink it unless we went outside haha. And they didn’t have any changing stations in the bathrooms?!?! I do NOT get why some restaurants don’t have them. But, yes, I just plopped her down on one of the booth cushions and changed her. And I def don’t feel bad about it b/c the restaurant should provide a place to do that!!! Luckily for the people eating there it was just a tee-tee diaper and not poop 😉
I’m SO glad the trip went so awesome. I really think it’s proof of why you should plan ahead. I had been working on the details of the trip since Feb. And because I was so planned, everything went wonderfully! Every single one of Zach’s birthday experiences was exactly what I’d hoped for! He had his best birthday ever, for sure!!! And the rest of us all had a great time too! I’m so thankful for Casey and Mrs. Charlotte and all of their help! We are so blessed to be able to take trips like these and we really made so many wonderful memories!
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