Beach Bound Family Vacation 2014

We went on our first family vacation this year. This was the first time any child of our has gone on vacation. Our whole house was so excited and patiently waiting all summer for the trip to the beach. Andrew packed his backpack in the begging of June and has keep it packed all summer. Everyday we talked about the vacation. When the day came to leave the kids were crazy and so excited. We left on a Friday afternoon when Bobby got off from work. We had a 5.5 hour drive to get to the beach. The van was packed to the brim, I can’t believe how much stuff we got in the van and how full it was!

Kids did great in the car, we made a pit stop at Bucee’s for gas and treats. Andrew loved every part of the adventure of the road trip, Will was punching the beaver and Lily didn’t want to get to close to the beaver.

Buc-ees had the cleanest and largest restrooms I have ever seen.

This little boy only slept for 45 min of the whole 6 hour road trip! The Caivano kids were there usual selves not sleeping a wink in the car.

Cousin’s with the Buc-ee beaver.
We all stopped at chick-fil-a to eat and play and the way headed south and made it to the beach house at around 9 pm. We loved the beach house it had 4 bedrooms and a large open kitchen and living room area and a big porch. The kids got to bed some time after 10pm, four of the cousins got to sleep in the same room. The kids handled it really well and had a lot of fun too.

Every morning after breakfast we all would head to the beach and play in the sand and swim. The water was warm and shallow for a long way out. It was nice so that the kids could run, play and swim and still touch the bottom of the ocean floor. Unless you were Lily…..

Lily’s favorite part of the trip was the beach house not the beach. She did not like the sand on the bottom of the ocean floor and she was scared of crabs. Uncle Dave had the magic touch and got Lily in the water. Lily did end up getting in everyday, in this picture I told her to close her eyes and lift her head to the sun to dry her face that got water on it.

Lily dealing with the sand. She loved her little pink chair.

Will not wanting me to take his picture, really he wanted me to hold him and not take pictures.

Will had a great time at the beach, he loved running around in this little baby pool God made just for us! The beach was not crowded at all and he got to roam and run as much as he wanted.

Will enjoyed floating in the ocean.

Will embracing his inner beach bum

Andrew loved every minute at the beach.  He was a fish swimming underwater and loved the waves.  Andrew has been looking forward to this trip for months and I think the vacation lived up to his expectations.

My big 5 year old. Another family had the cutest photo of each kid holding a beach ball with their age on it. They let us borrow the 5 year old one.

Bobby was able to rest and relax.

Buried alive by children. We had so much fun turning Bobby into a merman.

Aunt Ashley was next, she is so fun.

After our morning swim we would eat lunch at the house and put the kids down for nap. One day I took a run during nap time and I came back to this, Andrew wide awake watching t.v. this boy never tired in the afternoon. The beach tired everyone else out, the other kids took great naps and the adults were able to rest or relax.

A fun memory of reading Dinosaur Cove on the porch during nap time. The weather was so nice a cool for August.

Play hard and sleep hard.

Towards the end of the week, Will feel asleep on me at the beach one morning. I savored the cuddles from my busy boy. Later on that day had a fever and a allergic reaction to some kind of bites that he got on his legs. The last few days of vacation were hard on Will, thankfully Aunt Ashley brought a thermometer and tylenol and Benadryl.  I learned a lesson, always bring lots of medicine for the kids. Each of our 3 kids got some sort of sick on the trip. Thankfully everyone else was able to play and enjoy the beach.

We made some big cool sand castles.

The daddy’s got really into the sand castle building too.

Bobby and Dave went fishing a couple of times, I took this picture off the balcony of the house. They caught some black drum.

So glad I grab a kite a the dollar store before we left it was so fun and easy to fly at the beach.

Lily flying the kite.

The many emotions of Will...

Trying to get a family picture, Ava sneaked in.

Yep this is the only picture of all 5 of us at the beach.  Oh well next vacation I will try to remember to get more shots of the whole family.

Sweet Ben loved taking morning naps in the ocean.

Jakin was a fish in the ocean.

Maya had so much fun in the ocean jumping the waves.

This was Lily’s preferred way to be in the ocean, this way her feet didn’t touch the sand.

Waiting for breakfast on the deck.

Bed time in the kids room.

6 days flew by so fast, we had so much fun and then it was time to clean up and head back to Fort Worth. This is what Lily looked liked as we drove off the island.

We stopped at Burger King on the way home.

Will was awake the whole drive home until the last 45 min. of the trip and he finally fell asleep.

Lily was very entertaining on the way home with her crown, and gun shooting cars as we drove.

Woohoo she finally feel asleep for the last hour of the trip.

This is how Andrew looked as we left, sad to go home.

When we had been home for a few days Lily asked me if we could go to her new house that day (the beach house).

We got home and Lily came down with a fever and Andrew had some tummy troubles so I was happy that Bobby was off Friday and the weekend to help with all of our sick kiddos.

Beach Vacation 2014 to surf side beach was a success!!!!!