Skip to main content

Keys Vacation 2015 Day 7: Home Again

Today was the final day of our vacation if you include going home as an actual day. Everyone slept great last night. Will actually did 3 hour stretches all night so that was good.

We got up around 7:40 this morning and went down to breakfast. Kenzie didn't eat to eat again but we got a bit of food into Will. After breakfast we went back to the room and got everyone ready to head the pool for a bit. The hotel has a great pool that even has a waterfall. 

The kids loved the pool again. Kenzie and Daddy went under the waterfall. I tried to take Will both the force of the falling water was a bit much for him. He wasn't a fan. Either way the water was cool and awesome.





We had a bit of an issue again getting Kenzie out, but nothing like the pool in Marathon. When we got back upstairs we all changed and started our final packing. It wasn't too bad and we had the car loaded pretty quickly. Somehow we are leaving with less than we came with, it seems. I think it is because we used diapers and food while we were here and those took up a bit of room. 

We were on the road by about 10:30. We stopped for gas and lunch in Fort Pierce again. We were home by about 3pm and the sky opened up shortly after our arrival. We made it just in time to beat the rain. We are now unpacked and resting. Will has already been put in bed. He is having a difficult time going to sleep and I imagine we will have this issue for a few days as he re-adjusts to being home. No worries. I have faith we will have our routine back soon enough. =)

I figured since this was a super quick post I would recap a couple of things we leaned traveling with two small children. Some of what we learned is beach trip specific, but not all of it. 

-If you can fit it, having some food items from home can be good. You can usually always find a grocery store, but we use the items during the drive down a lot and we like certain brands of some things. 

-When you go to the beach with small children, less is more. We spent 20 minutes repacking the car before we left to fit in our chairs in but they never left the car because all our time was spent in the water. If we were going to a beach at home we would bring them but on a traveling vacation with other things planned, they weren't necessary. 

-if you plan to picnic, buy a cheap styrofoam cooler at your destination. Saves room and is cheap so you don't feel bad tossing it at the end of the vacation. Like we did. :)

-When possible, get a suite. You can put one (or both) kids in another room to sleep and not need to worry about tiptoeing around them once they fall asleep. (We highly recommend Embassy Suites.)

-If you have kids like ours, find a place with free breakfast since they likely will refuse a lot of food towards the end of a vacation anyway. Less money spent on food they didn't eat. Haha! 

-Don't worry if you don't get to do everything you hoped to. Skipping the sunset festival wasn't a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. The kids still loved Key West and we can do it when they are older. 

-Take pictures but if you forget to take one... Don't worry. It's about the memories. Not freaking out to get the perfect shot. 

-Enjoy it. They are only this small for a short time. They are only so easily amazed for a little while. I loved seeing their reactions to different things and hearing Kenzie's take on the world. Such as the "dancing" jellyfish and her informing me that she was going to teach the gators to "chomp chomp" so they can all chomp with her. :)

We had an amazing time. I think we were both a little nervous for this trip but the kids did so well and everyone had a blast. I can't wait to see what we can come up with next year. 

This is the end of The Beaches and Picnic Tour: Keys Vacation 2015.  Hope everyone reading these had fun following along. :)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Eight is Great!

Today Kenzie is EIGHT! It's so crazy. We have an 8 year old. Only two years away from double digits. A third grader. A girl that is quickly becoming a preteen. There is only a year left (technically) until that is officially the stage we are in. Though I have to say... she acts more and more like an actual preteen every day of her life. She's too much. We often joke that she is 8 going on 28, but in all honesty, she is an old soul and often acts much older than her years. At 8-years-old, Kenzie... - Is still the friendliest kid I know. She loves with her whole heart. She hates to hurt anyone's feelings. The downside is that her feelings get hit hard when someone isn't nice to her. We have had to deal with that on occasion, especially in the last year when we had a run in with a girl that Kenzie thought was her friend but she ended up being not really nice to Kenzie in the long run. We learned as parents that the "mean girl" stage starts early. Kenzie...

Young Summer of Fun - Bucket List Update (Week 11)

It's the final countdown! We officially have about 2 weeks left until the end of "summer" and therefore the end of our bucket list. We managed to check something off the list this week. We have just a couple left. There are two things that I do not believe we will be able to do, but I think getting everything but two things done is pretty awesome. We also added on quite a few fun things that I didn't actually add to the list and still have a few more fun things planned over the next 2 weeks. We will see how it all goes. Anyway, this week has been fun. Tiring. But fun. This was Kenzie's first week of VPK. And let me tell you... she rocked it. She is LOVING it. I know we are only 1 week in but I am still so glad to see her loving school again and doing so well already. I'm not going to recap her first day or most of her first week, but if you are interested, you can check out the post HERE . She did decide to try to wear every one of her new outfits this week....

Friday Favorites: Summer Bucket List Edition

This week's Friday Favorite isn't a product we love but rather our long anticipated (in our family) Summer Bucket List. This is something we have been doing for about 3 years running now. We sometimes keep a running bucket list of sorts for fall and spring too. We also always have an advent calendar of activities for the month of December. I think the summer list is my favorite though. Summer is a favorite season around this house. It means pool time, beach time, and a lot of other fun things that happen like Vacation Bible School and swimming lessons. This year we have a few new things and some oldie but goodies. Technically we have quite a bit of time until summer officially begins, but we are so excited for summer that we decided to make the list now. We also decide to start summer post Memorial Day so our activities will begin in about 6 weeks. We are super excited to have a few new things this year as well as keeping a couple of things that we didn't get around to ...