Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Thanksgiving Beach Trip

We just returned from a wonderful Thanksgiving beach trip.  We spent a week in Stuart, FL at a house right on the water and it was fantastic.  My mom and Scott's parents joined us for the week and we all had a great time together.  We had perfect weather for the entire week and got to spend lots of time on the beach.  

Our home for the week
We built lots of sand castles on this little private beach.  The house was perfect for kids.  It had lots of toys (even a play kitchen for Nora), sand toys, boogie boards, kayaks and firing rods.
The house faced the intracoastal waters, which was perfect for the kids, because it was calm.  
Literally across the street was the open water and the winds and waves were pretty strong on that side.  It was hard to believe that it was just across the street.
The kids loved the waves.  
Me, my mom and the kids
We don't get many pictures together.....
Three generations.....
Having a house is so much nicer when traveling with kids.  We made most of our meals at the house and we didn't have to go to bed when they do (because thats what happens when you stay in a hotel room with kids).
We ate out on the deck every night and enjoyed some good seafood.
And we had donuts on the deck
We went fishing off the dock a bunch of times.  Evan and Nora were not patient enough, but Hannah turned into quite the fisherman on this trip.  She sat out there with Scott and grandpa Irv for long periods of time.  She caught quite a few fish and a stingray off the dock.

Family picture on the dock
This was the first fish 
We saw some amazing sunsets from the deck.....it is so hard to capture the beauty of a sunset on camera, it never does it justice
We also had a pool that we used a lot and I was so thankful that it had a fence around it :).  This house was very kid friendly.

Scott, Irv, Hannah and Evan headed to the Dolphins game on Sunday.  They did a little bit of tailgating before heading into the game.

 They had amazing seats in the front row at the 50 yard line......not bad for Evan's first NFL game.

Meanwhile this is where the rest of us spent our Sunday afternoon

And some more fishing in the evening
We also went kayaking every afternoon.  It was the kids first time and I was really impressed how quickly Hannah and Evan just took off.Nora enjoyed going for rides with the adults.....and if course she had to try it on her own as well, but that was more of a paddle battle.
We also visited the Oceanographic Center and really enjoyed that.  We got to touch and feed stingrays and learn about sea turtles.
This place was very educational, but also fun for the kids with lots of games
This turtles name was Annabelle, so we had to get a picture for cousin Annabelle
At this point the two smaller kids had learned enough about sea turtles and were ready to go

I couldn't get enough of these sunsets
My mom was enjoying the sunset from the hot tub......it doesn't get much better than this
Scott, Irv, Jeannie and Hannah went deep sea fishing one morning.  My mom and I and the two little ones stayed back.  Hannah was a little nervous about getting sea sick, but she handled it like a champ and got really into the fishing.  She even caught a little shark.  
It was a little rough out, so I am glad I stayed back with the rest of the crew.
On Thanksgiving we did our traditional turkey trot.  Scott and I ran the 5k and the kids did a little fun run.  Nice thing about running in Florida is that its completely flat.  Bad thing is the humidity:)

The kids were ready to race
Hannah in action
Nora crossing the finish line
Evan was too fast we didn't get a good picture of him. Haha!

We went into downtown Stuart a few times for dinner and ice cream.  It is a very cute little area and reminded me a little bit of Key West.
Now it is back to reality.