Tales From The Beach...with Kids.

Happy Hump Day!

On Monday afternoon the girls and I headed out to the beach house for a week of sun, fun, and water! It's become a July 4th tradition the past two years. 

July 4th 2014

The group of us includes my family, plus my brother Jay, Katie, Kennedy, Alisha, Harper, and Josh.

We've been relaxing  hanging out and doing nothing but playing, eating, drinking...and teaching these kids how to share. 

Sitting around yesterday we started talking about what it would be like if we didn't have kids with us and nobody in the group was about to give birth (Alisha's due date is a little over 2 weeks). Basically we'd be over at the beach tiki bar, hanging around at the pool, reading magazines, getting sun, maybe a trip to the spa, and most likely 100% tipsy. 

There is no argument that vacationing with kids, is something some people wouldn't even call a vacation. I'm talking young kids, under the age of 5. 

It's exhausting at times, frustrating at times, but it's all about building these memories and having fun WITH OUR KIDS. But sometimes what we think would be fun for our kids, turns out not to be fun for anyone. 

That's how this morning went. 

We decided to take a early trip to the beach, figuring if there's any "best" time to go to the beach, it's as early as we can possibly get out there. 

We figured we'd only be there for about an hour, two at most, so we packed light. Sunscreen,towels, and water. We loaded the kids up in their strollers and down the road we strolled to the beach.

By the time we made it to the sand, the fun level was already at 70%. It was 10 am and miserably hot. 

A couple meters into the sand, towards the water, pulling two strollers and four kids with us. Fun level 50%. 

Then a very nice couple saw us struggling and helped us with the stroller. 
Fun level 60%.

Thinking about the way back without this wonderful help, I told the nice couple to just park our strollers by the grassy area (probably 100 yards from the ocean). We parked the strollers, gathered our valuables and headed to the water. 

All four kids were racing to the water, screaming "water!!" with excitement! (They've seen the ocean before...)

Fun level 100%!

We get to the shore line and the excitement stops. No one wants to go in the ocean. Partly because we're all secretly scared of getting that flesh eating bacteria and partly because the water was a bit choppy. The girls had little interest, other than looking at the waves come crashing in. 

We walked along the shore for maybe 5 minutes. Took some photos, sat in the sand, smiled, and thought about how much better the pool sounded than this sticky misery.

Getting the strollers back to the road was something out of a comedy. We had Alisha thinking she's about to go into labor, Harper not wanting anyone to carry her except Alisha. Me with the two girls, two beach bags, and a double stroller. And Katie with the stroller, cooler, and Kennedy.

I don't know if you've ever tried pushing a stroller in the sand, but let me highly discourage you from ever giving it a try.

We made it to the house, after all kids had their own kind of melt down along the way, and immediately jumped in the pool. We decided not to give the beach another go until the guys came back to help us with everything. 

While it had it's enjoyable moments, the experience was one that makes us wonder why we ever thought it was a good idea to being with. That's what we get for trying to create these fun adventures with the kids, when they're happiest in the pool with a Popsicle. :) Life with Kids. 

P.S. Alisha didn't go into labor.

Hope everyone is enjoying the week!! 

XOXO

Jamaica Part 2: Venturing Outside the Resort

Morning! How did you like Part 1 of our Jamaican adventures? 

On to the rest of the adventures...

We ventured outside the resort only two times this trip. I wanted the girl's to be able to get in as much pool and beach time as they wanted, but also wanted them to experience some of Jamaica's natural offerings. 

Thursday afternoon we traveled outside the resort to a place called Lobster Daves, which is located by MargaritaVille in Ocho Rios. It's $20 per person and all you can eat lobster, fish, and sides. We brought all the beverages from our hotel room fridge, so we walked up to Lobster Daves with backpacks full of Red Stripe.

I was told these are called Chicken lobsters. They are smaller in size to what I'm used to seeing, but taste delicious! The sauce they put on top was also amazing. 

Fried fish. I didn't eat this but everyone else did and raved about it. 

Sides included rice and peas, cucumber and tomato salad, and this platter of fried goodness. Sweet bead, plantains, and fried bammy (Jamaican bread)

There was enough food for everyone to eat plus probably 10 more people. We ate until we couldn't possibly fit another thing in our mouth. 

All around Lobster Dave's are small shop vendors. This had pros and cons. The pro was that they entertained the kids. The con was that entertainment had a price. We walked away with full tummies, 5 necklaces, and 2 bracelets. After our cash ran out, one guy wanted us to trade Angelo's Oakley sunglasses for a $2 necklace...fair?

After stuffing ourselves (that was a reoccurring situation on this trip) we started the journey to the Blue Hole. We had a tour guide/friend in the van with us to take the ride. If we didn't, we probably would of never made it. 

If you ask for directions in Jamaica expect for it to sound something like this:

Things heard during the car ride to the Blue Hole:

"There's a pot hole, just go to the right." 

"Take a left after this bush"

"Go up the hill, down, then back up"

"Don't worry, that dog/goat will move...keep going"

"Don't stop here, this isn't the blue hole, they just want to you think it is.."  - What does that even mean?!

*TIP* Take a tour guide (or someone who knows anything about Jamaica) with you every time you leave the resort area.

After an anxiety attack and reviving myself to life, we made it to the Island Gully Falls which is a less touristy part of the Blue Holes. We had our guides, Julian and Tony, who colored me beyond impressed! They were SO amazing with all the kids, and fearless climbing trees, WALKING up and down the waterfall, bouncing around the falls like basketballs. We were all wide eyed just watching them do their thing. Along with that entertainment, we all got to jump and swing off the falls too. The water and scenery was beautiful. Highly recommend this excursion!

Our group! Can you picture us all shoved in a van rolling up a mountain? That happened...

Girl power

The falls

Beautiful tropical plants surrounding us

The last of the "blue holes" where we swam around. 

That's all the outside excursions we did as a family, besides going to a local grocery store to get jerk seasoning and Appleton Rum. #Essentials

Others in the group went to Duns River Falls on Saturday. Duns River Falls is another excursion were you climb up a waterfall. We did Duns River five years ago and I highly recommend it if you've never been. 

Picture from the website

The rest of the vacation was spent at the bar..I mean pool. Well there are bars in the pools so same thing really. :)

I hope you enjoyed my Jamaican Vacation Recap posts! 

XOXO

Family Disney Weekend

Hey y'all!

This weekend was a DISNEY weekend! All last week we had a little countdown going with Sophia and every morning she'd wake up and say "How many more days till Disney?!" 

The weekend finally came and off we went to the happiest place on earth...

Can't you feel the excitement?! Obviously Sophia was a little more into it than Nelps was. But they both still had fun! 

We had originally planned to take a Disney vacation when Sophia got out of school, but that falls on Memorial Day weekend and going to Disney on a holiday weekend is something I would never want to do. 

Our hotel: Hyatt Grand Cypress Hotel 
I can't say better things about this hotel It's about a mile outside of Disney and has so much to do! We've stayed here the past 3 times we came to Disney and I don't know if I'll ever stray from it (maybe...). They have gorgeous pools (multiple) with a slide, waterfalls, and rope bridge, a little beach with paddle boarding, canoes, sailboats, etc., biking and running trails, and probably the best Cucumber Collins drink and quesadillas I've ever had.  That's not even the whole list, but now you know why I absolutely love this hotel in Orlando. Kid Friendly Mania and I think Nelp's enjoyed the pool more than Disney...sad but true at that age. 

Disney Parks: 
Animal Kingdom- I was really excited for this since I had never been. The first thing we did when the park opened was head straight to the back of the park to get in line for Kilimanjaro Safaris and I'm glad we did! We waited maybe 10 minutes to do the safari and once we got back, the wait time had already gone to 110 minutes! Isn't that NUTS?! So, now you know when to do the Kilimanjaro Safari. We got fast passes for Finding Nemo Musical, It's Tough to be a Bug, and Festival of Lion King. 

People were telling us that It's Tough to be a Bug was dark and maybe too scary for the girls. So we nixed that one and went to Finding Nemo. Kennedy and Nelps fell asleep while Sophia seemed to enjoy it. We started walking around the park to see some animals and had another two hours before Lion Kind fastpass. It was hot, and waiting hours to see the Lion King show didn't seem like something we wanted to do. So we left the park and went to the hotel pool. Best decision of the day!

Magic Kingdom
If you have kids until the age of 4, Magic Kingdom is really the place to be! They have so many rides that the whole family can do together with no height requirements. There are a good amount with height requirements, but still enough for us to do to pack an entire day.

It's a Small World Ride

Prince Charming Regal Carousel

It was an over all great weekend at Disney! 

Exhausting and hot but good fun! 

The lines weren't too long for anything on Sunday at Magic Kingdom, so FastPasses weren't really needed except for Meeting Princesses, Peter Pan, and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Everything else had a 10-30 minute wait. 

It rained later in the afternoon while we were in TomorrowLand and I think that cleared out some people. 

I hope you all had a great weekend with friends and family!! Here's to a productive week until the next one!

XOXO