Back in October when we left our favorite beach, Port St. Joe/Cape San Blas we decided we wanted to come back again to visit in the summer. Fortunately since school started back SO early this year it meant that school also got out SUPER early. The last day of school was May 18th, so we had a full week before Memorial Day. We decided to take advantage of the early summer break, and head to the Cape immediately. So in late October we booked our trip back to the Cape for May 19-25. The day after school got out we woke up and loaded the van and headed to the beach!
We were all so excited for so many reasons. We all LOVE the beach, but also we were excited to get to spend a week ALL together. John has been living in Alabama Sunday night through Friday night each week for a month now, and so who could have guessed back when we booked this vacation that it would perfectly split our time living in separate states. It worked out perfectly!
The kids did amazing in the car on the way down and back! They continue to be better and better travelers. This was Clayton's first long car ride trip since potty training, so I was a little concerned over this-but he did amazing!
These pictures are all out of order because some were taken on our good camera, some on John's phone, and some on my phone.
Our very favorite thing about visiting the Cape is that there's nothing going on there! To me, it is the most relaxing place on Earth. Our cell phones don't even get service out on the beach only in our townhouse where we stay because we stay way out on the end of the cape. It's just SO relaxing. IT is the best place for family time playing together and enjoying the beach, ocean, pool, sea/beach creatures, and each others company.
This picture may be one of my all time favorites of Dawson. Now that school's out I'm beginning to see his more relaxed fun personality again. Love it!
This suntent was an addition to our beach gear for this tent, and after I gave up on trying to keep everyone from walking in it all sandy, it turned out to be a great place for the kids to get out of the sun for a few minutes, and enjoy a snack...or caprisun.
The kids know that going to the beach means getting special food that we don't always get....caprisuns, cereal bars, sugary snacks....if you can't tell by Clayton's close proximity to the cooler in many pictures, Clayton was thrilled by the "treats" he got to enjoy this week.
Could the sky be any more beautiful?! And look how old Dawson looks!
I could do this every day.
Dawson and Nora Kate
This is another thing we love about the Cape...we basically have the beach to ourselves! It's great because the kids can run.
Silly, silly, silly...love Carter.
The kids found tons of these crabs.
Dawson's hands look so big holding this.
Unintentionally Blue day on the beach.
You get one good picture..then there's this if you try to take another...hah!
ThisWe have a special routine that every time we take a beach vacation, when we first arrive before unloading anything in our townhouse, we go straight down to the beach in our clothes...everyone usually ends up getting in the ocean fully clothed-usually the carefree middle kids first initiate this, but it ends with everyone clothed and in the ocean...so this was our fresh out of the van just got our toes in the ocean picture.
Everyone was so excited
ThisClayton laid down in the water, so he took off his shirt...now soaking wet and already loving the ocean!
This girl and I are excited to be at the beach!
This was our first morning at the beach! We stayed in the same townhouse where we've stayed before. One thing (among many) we like about it is that it has 3 balconys...one on each level. John and I enjoyed coffee on the master balcony before the kids woke on the first morning. Beautiful morning.
This townhouse also has a good view of the pool. This was the same morning looking over the pool.
This was a new swim suit from Lolly that says "sun day fun day" and even though we packed several swim suits, so begged to wear this one almost every day.
This because is so beautiful.
Dawson loves digging holes at the beach. He actually asked if we could take a real shove this year. He dug some crazy big and deep holes. If he wasn't in the ocean, he was digging.
This is my favorite place in the world.
Just looking at the pictures make me want to go back now.
This is one of his deeper holes...he dug so deep he hit water.
Love her hand on hip pose and how she wanted me to do the same thing.
We have a picture of the kids in this Cape San Blas chair outside the Cape Trading Post ("the cape store") from each trip. We unintentionally matched the kids the evening we happened to be by there to take a picture.
John at "the Cape store"
This week Clayton was a total Daddy's boy.
Our favorite evening routine is crab catching
This little boy wanted the biggest net for crab catching.
This year the boys on their own picked matching swimming trucks and Lolly got them for their birthdays. Love it!
This girl LOVES laying in the sun. She was also thrilled about our sugary snacks for the week-she's thrilled with this pop tart.
I went on a longer run one morning. My watch mapped the route I ran on this map above-started at green, finished at red. I couldn't imagine a better place to run!
This was the day we rented a kayak and learned several things... first of all, they're WAY heavier than they look. It took about all I had in me to help John carry it from our townhouse down to the beach. Then when the waves wacked it into my shin, I thought I was going to fall over! I see people carrying these over their heads and now I'm bewildered?! How in the world do they do this?! Maybe we rented the world's heaviest kayak. Anyway, they had a lot of fun kayaking in the ocean, but then decided to kayak in the back. The owner of the rental company let us just kayak off his personal dock and it was SO perfect. We saw a baby shark swimming around, the kids could play when it wasn't their turn to kayak, and it was so beautiful.
This was kayaking in the ocean.
This was after we moved over to the bay.
This was the beautiful view from the dock on the bay behind the rental company owner's house...can you imagine this being your backyard?! Incredible.
This is another vacation tradition...we eat as many meals-BUT ALWAYS breakfast! on our balcony. I think out of breakfast, lunch, and dinner all week we only ate inside 2 or 3 times. The kids love it.
This was my cheat sweet treat.
I had been thinking about an Old Fashioned Donut from Weber's Little Donut Shop since we were here in October. I decided it was the perfect cheat to eat. It did not disappoint. Ignore how rough I look-I had just gotten back from my run.
This is another tradition of visiting the cape...we go to the state park. There's a perfect area for catching (and then releasing) all kids of little creatures.
There is also a playground there.
This AND then, there are the most amazing beaches there. You have to do a little, little "hike" to get to this area which is the most beautiful, but it's completely empty. Just white sand and clear blue waters. There are beautiful dunes the trail path leads you through the photos do not do justice. It's unreal.
These are some of the dues you go through...definitely way more beautiful in real life.
We saw these deer there. For some reason it's always funny to me to see deer at the beach.
This John and the big boys walked this trail that warned of alligators. They didn't see any, but Nora Kate adamantly did not want to go on this trail after she saw the gator sign, so she, Clayton, and I stayed on the playground.
Relaxing and snacking in the sun tent on the beach.
The last night we were at the beach, John and I were discussing how we had been invited to Annie's birthday in Alabama the next day, but how we would be on the road back to Tennessee so we couldn't go. Then we had the idea-what IF we drove from Port St. Joe to Alabama. We thought we could take the kids by to show them the lot we bought to build our house on AND go to Annie's birthday party. THEN we spend the night in Alabama and drive the rest of the way back to Tennessee on Sunday. We decided that would be fun! SO we did!
I am writing several blog posts about our new house that I am not quiet ready to share just yet, but this was what our lot looked like when we took the kids to see it for the first time on the way home from the beach. Clayton LOVED seeing the construction equipment there.
Nora Kate and Annie at Annie's birthday party in Alabama on our way home from the beach.
This vacation could not have been more perfect. I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but the evening before we left for the beach our Tennessee home went under contract! YAY!!!! This was awesome because it meant we didn't spend the week thinking about it selling. We could totally relax. Also, the timing was perfect because the closing date set with the buyers of our Tennessee house was in 4 weeks, this meant that this trip that we planned back at the end of October before we ever had any idea we would be moving was perfectly in the middle of the time John was living in Alabama with us in Tennessee. He was in Alabama for 4 weeks, we went on our week-long vacay, then we had 4 more weeks and then we all were back together again! It worked out so well.
We always love our vacations to the Cape, and it's so beautiful and relaxing there that it's hard to imagine going anywhere else. We made some great memories and enjoyed it very much!
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