Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Weekly Highlights (Beach Edition!)

We spent last week at the beach, and it was a great week! I will say that being at the beach with kids is TIRING, and we were glad to get home. David said he was looking forward to going back to work on Monday so that he could get some rest. Haha! We stayed at my aunt and uncle's house, which was SO nice because it was free! I mean, it doesn't get better than that, right?! However, their house isn't on the beach - it's about a 10 minute car ride. That made logistics of getting there with the kids a little more complicated than it would have been if we could have just walked outside and been at the beach. But, again, so worth it to have a free place to stay! :)

Sunday was Father's Day, and we went to church and Sunday school. Afterwards, we had lunch at David's parents house. We enjoyed celebrating with them! After lunch, we went straight to my parents' house and picked up my mom. We then got on the road!
We broke our "no pacifier anywhere other than the bed" rule so that she would nap in the car. It was worth it ;)
Alaina sleeping, Aubrey and Jude watching a movie... not bad at all!
We stopped for dinner at Panera and had a smooth trip. We made it to where we were staying before 9, and we got the kids right to bed. (Alaina slept in a pack n play all week, and she did GREAT. I was shocked and thrilled by this.)

Monday was our first day at the beach, and we were so excited! We got up and got going pretty early. We stopped at the grocery store on the way so that we could eat lunch at the beach. We got everyone sunscreened up in the parking lot, and then we hit the beach!
We stayed for several hours and had so much fun! After lunch, we headed back home to get the kids bathed and down for naps. Actually, Alaina is the only one who had a real "rest time" all week. We didn't want to leave Aubrey and Jude unattended in non-kid proofed rooms while they were awake, so their rest time consisted of watching a movie on the couch everyday.
Aubrey lost her first tooth that day! How is she old enough for that?!
Anyway, the adults got ready during rest time, and when Alaina woke up we headed to Destin for dinner and shopping. We ate at Hardrock Café, and then I walked around The Destin Commons and did some shopping while my mom and David watched the kids play in the play area.
That is SUNBURN on Jude's face. He seriously looked like he had some kind of skin condition. It was pitiful :(
We were all happy :) We got ice cream on the way home. So fun!
David, my mom, and Jude had all gotten sunburned the day before, so on Tuesday we didn't want to go to the beach that morning since they were burned. We headed back to Destin and ate at the Donut Hole instead. I was ok with that trade off ;)
Jude was just relaxing while we waited for a table :)
After brunch, we headed back home. By the time we got there, it was about naptime. While everyone rested, I went to the beach by myself. Umm, heaven! :)
I stopped at the grocery store on the way home and picked up some food for us to cook for dinner. We had a nice meal, but we decided that cooking at home was too much trouble and too stressful in someone else's kitchen to do it again. Ha! After eating an early dinner, we went to the beach that evening. I LOVE the beach that time of day.
It was so nice because we didn't have to worry about getting sunburned, and it wasn't crowded at all. We stayed until bedtime.

On Wednesday, we went to the beach again that morning and stayed until after lunch.
Aubrey and Alaina LOVED it when David took them out into the ocean. Jude wouldn't get so much as his big toe wet. He was perfectly happy sitting by our towels and playing in the sand by himself.
We headed home and got the kids cleaned up and settled for rest time. My mom, David, and I got ourselves ready. That night, we decided to drive to Pensacola just for something different.
We went to a mall and went to World Market. We then ate at a pizza place for dinner. We had to wait a while to be seated, and the kids got SO restless. By the time we got seated, I just knew that this meal was going to be a disaster. Our waitress brought out some dough for the kids to play with, though, and it kept them SO entertained. I was thankful!
After dinner, we headed home and got the kids to bed.

On Thursday morning, we got up and got ready to go to the outlet mall in Destin. We made it there by about 10, and then we shopped until lunchtime. The kids also enjoyed the playground :)
We ate lunch at a restaurant at the mall, and then we did a bit more shopping before heading back.
My mom let each of the kids pick something out at the Disney Store. Alaina grabbed this Minnie Mouse, and we thought we were good to go...
Oh, but wait! She had a last minute change of heart, and we ended up with Aurora instead :)
We stayed at the mall longer than I expected, so Alaina ended up taking her nap in the car on the way home. When we got back, it was late afternoon, so we packed some dinner in the cooler and went to the beach.
We had another great evening at the beach! We came home for baths and bed.

Friday was our last day at the beach, and we spent the whole morning there. We had a great time!
We came home after lunch, and I was trying to decide if I wanted to go back to the beach by myself during naptime when it started raining. Decision made! ;) I ended up getting ready instead, and then I ironed clothes for the kids because I wanted to try to get some pictures that night. Oh, and Aubrey lost ANOTHER tooth that afternoon!
We got everyone ready, and then we headed to the beach to get some pictures of the kids. We didn't go all the way to the water because we were going to dinner right afterwards and we wanted the kids to stay semi-clean. We got some cute pictures, though! I'll post more in a separate post.
We ended up at a Mexican place for dinner, and it was SO good! The best place we ate all week by far! (It's kind of hilarious to me that we didn't eat ANY seafood while we were at the beach. But we didn't.)
We went home after dinner and got the kids to bed, and then we did some packing and cleaning before going to bed ourselves.

On Saturday, we got up and finished packing and cleaning up the house. We got on the road around 10:30.
The trip home was LONG. The kids were just tired after such a fun week, and they basically bickered and whined and full out screamed the whole way. Stopping for lunch at Moe's was the highlight of the day.
Alaina did fall asleep for about 45 minutes after lunch, and that was the only relatively peaceful part of the trip. We also got stuck in traffic and had to stop several times for people to go to the bathroom. Basically, it just wasn't a fun trip home. But we did finally make it! We dropped my mom off and then came home to see our floors. While we were gone, we had hardwood installed in our living room, and I was really happy with the way it looked! The rest of the house was SUCH a mess, though! We went to dinner at Whole Foods, and I got some groceries. We then got the kids to bed, and went to bed ourselves. Whew! It was a crazy, busy, tiring, fun week!
 

3 comments:

Nathalie said...

The beach and the sand look SO nice!!

Jennifer said...

Gorgeous pictures! Aubrey is so cute - I love her little skirt and your white tank is pretty too. Poor Jude with his sunburn. Henry burns easily too. Going out to eat with kids is highly overrated!!!!

Nathalie said...

Carrie, I LOVED Language of Flowers too!! It's probably my favourite book out of the entire list. The Kitchen House was great too ;).