beach vacay : part two

After a lovely day and overnight our friends' house in Georgia we journeyed on to our Florida destination - Treasure Island.  This is a tiny town adjacent to St. Petersburg which neither of us had been to.  It was lovely!

 Our three days staying in Hubby's parents' condo basically went like this:
- Breakfast
-Walk to beach (slightly less than a mile each way...so we got a little exercise)
- Play at beach 1-2 hours
- Go to beach playground/snack shop and let kiddos play while mama + dada sit watching...oh, and enjoying an ice cold beer.
- Walk back to condo for lunch.
- Naps (for everyone!)
- Get up and find some local fun...basically, a park.  I mean we have toddlers.  :) We found a couple good ones!
- Dinner meant takeout, except for the one night we ate together at a restaurant.

always nice to find a giant statue to climb on!

We had one "romantic date night."  With the kiddos.  It was actually not so bad.  We found an Italian restaurant with cheesy decor and insufficient lighting (perfect!) They offered paper tablecloths with crayons, and sat us in a big booth next to huge fish tanks, which entertained the kids about fifteen minutes until Finola took one of the crayons and began drawing all over one of the fish tanks.  Oops.  Thankfully no one noticed - or at least didn't curse us openly while we were there.

Being on the beach with the babes went amazingly well.  Seriously...we were amazed.  Though we had dark premonitions of irrational fear of the water, sunscreen getting in eyes, and sand being stuck to every square inch of their bodies -- none of that happened.   Cormac loved the calm waves of the Gulf and actually went in quite a bit!  Fin allowed us to bring her in and float her around a bit, but she seemed way more interested in the sand and the seagulls and running away from us along the beach to chase the seagulls.  We brought a big bucket of sand toys and they were entertained for several hours each day.  We always went after breakfast and before lunch so we didn't have to try to eat on the beach (I gave them snacks in the stroller on the way there and back.)

I told her to lay with me on the towel and that is what she did.

this little one fell asleep before getting to the beach one day.  her schedule was kinda off the whole time.

Finola found some boys playing football and they basically gave it to her.  I mean, who could resist?

finola doing her 'hanging trick' at one of the nearby parks we found 

The final night we drove to nearby St. Petersburg to explore Fort De Soto state park.  Cormac loved the cannons, while Finola enjoyed wandering around the grounds finding trees to sit under and pick plants.

hiking around

the cannon 'firing room' - declared his favorite room, even though it was locked.

enjoying nature and contemplating life.

Finally we walked on the pier at sunset and were treated to a beautiful orange and pink sky.  We walked among the many people fishing quietly off the long pier and enjoyed the stunning views and sound of the ocean.

The next day we bid farewell to Treasure Island and the beach.  I didn't take any photos the rest of the trip because it was such a whirlwind of marathon driving and we were anxious to get it over with. 

 We drove to Atlanta and spent the night with Hubby's good friend Marc from high school - was so nice to see him and for them to hang out a bit!  So thankful for the hospitality of friends - especially a bachelor willing to let two toddlers invade his amazing condo for a night!!!  

We got up at 3am the next morning and finished the drive.  We were home by around noon, and it was kind of nice to have the rest of the day (and then weekend!) to recover.

Was a fantastic first family vacay.

I think we all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

Cormac kept saying for a week after that he wanted to live at the condo.

If he keeps waking me up 3-4 times a night due to "bad dreams" I just might let him.

;) 

Happy Monday!