We love hitting the beach the week before Memorial Day to beat the big crowds and, more importantly, the sweltering heat! This is our last year not having kids in "real" school, so it might be the last time we get to take advantage of going that week. Who knows, maybe we'll skip one of the last weeks of kindergarten next year...
For the third year in a row, we invited our friends, the Rikards, to join us. Our kids play so well together and we've gotten in the groove of how to vacation together. I think this year was probably our best one yet!
I know I've said it before, but it's so much easier when we leave on Friday and drive a little more than half way. Plus, the kids think staying at a hotel is the best. We stopped for dinner at Cracker Barrel and had to do some porch rockin'.
I bought the kids each a pair of headphones for the trip and they wouldn't take them off. They carried around their "ipads" (Leap Frog Tablets) so they could listen to music. Teenagers already, I tell ya.
Our vacation is getting predictable. When getting close to the beach house, we first stop in Seaside for pizza and our first beach sighting. And then we always take a picture in this cutout board!
Our biggest goal for the trip was just to really get into vacation mode. So we tossed any kind of schedule out the window, ate ice cream or candy every night, didn't force naps, and generally said yes to most things. It was fun!
One pineapple, four straws!
Beach Bums
This year, Matt and Laura dug two really deep holes in the sand and then connected them with a tunnel. It terrified this mama, but Katie Wynn and Levi loved crawling from one hole to the other! We let them do it a few times before collapsing the hole so no one else could go in it.
Pool Sharks
Coordinating Cuteness
If you know me at all, then you know it wouldn't be vacation without plenty of matching outfits!
I don't know where they get all of their "coolness" from.
Here is our family picture from the evening we spent at The Hub.
And this is the "goodbye" photo taken on the front steps of the beach house before we drove away after a super fun week. Might be my favorite picture of all four kids...even if they don't all match!
The only bad thing about vacationing the week before Memorial Day is that it's over too early in the summer! We really have to figure out a way to spend another week at the beach at the end of the summer too. Not too much to ask, right?