Before all the memories fade away I need to post about our beach vacation to Florida.
Our very first family vacation ever.
As in, just us.
Without grandparents there to help.
I went into it a little nervous. I'm a pretty selfish person when it comes to vacation. I have it in my head that it is a time for me to relax. Contemplate life. Enjoy the scenery. Re-charge. Have romantic time with my husband. Eat fancy food.
Not so when you have two little ones.
Totally different sort of vacation.
Well, I guess you can do all those things with babies along...it is just more difficult. (Unless you bring along a babysitter. Which we didn't.)
Despite being different, we actually had a really awesome time together!
We started our journey on a Friday afternoon. Our hope was to leave at nap time, the kids would sleep a couple hours, and that we would make it down to my friend Kristina's house in Georgia by about 9pm.
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| our dog travelled with us the first couple hours. then the grandparents got him. |
Well, let's just say this: minimal napping happened, a dinner stop at Chik-fil-A somehow stretched to almost two hours, and we didn't arrive at our friends' home until 1am.
Trying to situate two kiddos in a new sleeping situation at 1am is not so fun...but it all worked out in the end. Sleep happened for all.
Then we had a really great Saturday with our friends! Kristina made amazing pumpkin pancakes, we walked around their sweet Southern neighborhood and played with the kiddos at a park, then the girls grabbed coffee and had a lovely time touring downtown and antiquing in the afternoon.
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| cormac + lincoln enjoyed a few meals at their own private table |
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| I sort of fell in love with this painted brick wall. |
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| I took photos of random mansions. |
The night involved a babysitter putting all the kiddos to bed while the adults got a light dinner (ps -never eat a big salad before a race!!!!) and then ran in a 5K in their sweet little town. I was pretty nervous because I hadn't done a 5K race in years and had no idea what my time would be. So I bounced around with all my crazy energy and psyched myself out and then ended up running much faster than I anticipated! The course had some crazy hills but since Kristina and I had driven the course earlier I was somewhat prepared (even though I am not a good hill runner.)
My time ended up being 22:45 (or close to that...under 23 for sure) and I got third place overall female -- I've never placed before so pretty exciting! Yay for small town races!
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pre-race.  |
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| about to cross the finish line - beast mode! (ps I hate running pictures of myself. I never look cute.) |
top three female finishers - a first for me! we won fabulous travel mugs :D |
| the male and female top finishers. um. I feel old. |
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| top guys in their division -- my Hubby(c) and Kristina's hubby Mike (r)!!!! |
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| enjoying some cold brew after the race. |
The following pics are at a pretty rest area in Georgia. I have an appreciation for interesting and scenic rest areas (oh, and clean ones!!!) Some rest areas are boring and horrible. (There were a few of those on this trip.) This one had huge area for the kids to roam, a path shaped like a snake (I guess there are a lot of snakes in GA?) with a beautiful grove of Spanish moss trees. I kind of fell in love with these trees...and so did Finola. She grabbed a huge glob of Spanish moss off the ground and carried it around for about twenty minutes.
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It wasn't long until the kiddos (and us!) were ready to finally be at the beach. Even a McD's stop didn't help. We were restless!
But finally, at about 8pm we arrived in Treasure Island, tired from our journey and just happy to pick up some pizza and get settled into the condo.
Beach adventure post Monday!
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Hope everyone has an awesome Halloween night!
Ahhh, looks so fun. Too bad you, me, and Kristina didn't all live closer...Have a feeling we'd have afternoons of shopping / dining more often!
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