My Dream Vacation - Day 3

This was the day we decided to venture into Ocean Shores. The weather was absolutely gorgeous! When planning this trip knowing that it was going to be late September I didn't even pray that the weather be nice. I mean...beggers can't be choosers, right! The gorgeous blue sky was the icing on the cake though! 

The first place we stopped was the beach there in Ocean Shores. We got the kids kite out so they could fly it around and of course we brought all sorts of sand toys. 

I had fun scraping my name out of sand! 

Michael of course set out to build an awesome sand castle kingdom. 

It's a bit bright isn't it Owen? 

The nice thing about our kite is it's just a little one...the kids all were able to handle it. They did let go a couple times, but it just ends up falling down so it's not a big deal. 

Bill and Christina have a nice kite they got from Costco....the handle is super nice and made winding the string up so easy! 

It was WAY up there! 

Zeke LOVED the kite! 

It was so fun watching him run around the beach with it. 

Our crew was spread out all over the place. 

I thought it would be fun to do a selfie with each of my kiddos and my man! 

When we drove onto the beach Owen had seen these big sand mountains. He just couldn't stand it he had to go conquer them. So Christina and I took all the kids except Zeke over to check them out. 

Big brothers! 

Run up the mountain and...

jump off the mountain! 

We knew we would be out and about for lunch so we packed food and had a picnic on the beach with The Kuch's. 

My parents and Ryan & Steph were off on adventures of their own. We were planning on meeting them later in the day. 

Shortly after lunch Michael finished his sandcastle kingdom and like always he let the kids destroy it! 

This is...

the best...

thing ever...

in their...

minds! 

An hour worth of work destroyed in about 10.5 seconds! 

After the beach I dropped Michael and the older boys off at the go-kart place. Michael was going to take them on the go-karts and then walk across the street to play mini golf. Since I had already done something special with Ella the day before I didn't want to spend money on that for her...I felt like it was a good Daddy/bigger boys bonding time as well. Zeke is just too little for that stuff yet! Christina had read about this free interpretive center on the south side of Ocean Shores so that's where we headed. 

When we got there we saw guys working  on the building and they ended up not being open, but the guy was so nice he said we could come in anyways. This place was so cool! They totally get kids! They completely understand that kids need to touch and feel everything. There were rocks and feathers and whale bones and just tons of fun stuff to look at and see. The only things they couldn't touch were the taxidermy animals. The kids were fascinated by them though so they didn't mind that they couldn't touch them. The also did have animal pelts hanging on the walls so they were able to feel the animals fur and see the differences between the animals.    

Zeke was so excited that he came running over to me and I had to go see the owl he found. I didn't even see it until he pointed it out, but I'm sure that's because it was more at his eye level! 

Hard to starboard!!! 

The guy that let us in is the head of the board of directors for the center. He explained how they get their animals...they have permits to get them when they die...its not like they are going out and hunting them. We were there for probably an hour and it ended up being way more fun that I had imagined. They are doing some upgrades so it will be fun to come check it out again the next time we visit. 

We still had a little time before we were meeting everyone in town so we drove over to this spit area so we could check out the ocean. 

Ella thought this rock that was like a slide was pretty cool! 

The beach was just breathtaking. When we were at Ocean Shores earlier the tide was out so far it made it hard to play the "run from the waves" game. Thankfully the tide was in during this time so we had so much fun running from the waves. I was holding Zeke and his whole body would tense up and he was giggling so hard. Great fun!!!

That's when we got the call that everyone was already in town and they were waiting for us. We had planned to take the kids for ice cream during this trip and it just so happened that on Tuesday it was National Ice Cream Cone Day so it worked out perfectly!!! 

Murphy's is an ice cream shop right in the heart of Ocean Shores. I don't think we've ever come without getting ice cream from there. The kids were all talking at a mile a minute telling us which flavor they wanted. Aunt Stephie had them line up so she could take their pictures. 

Stephie also took a picture of all of us enjoying our treats! She then won the Auntie of the year award by letting each kiddo pick a piece of candy! The most popular thing was the Ring Pops! 

The kids just had to show me their colored tongues! 

Hey you silly photo bomber Owen!!! 

Later that night we had Teriyaki Chicken Sliders for dinner. Pa took the kids over to the pool so they could swim. I think that's when we played Banana Grams. Normally that's a very fast pace game, but we were having terrible luck so it was SO slow! Still one of the things on my to do list had been to play games so it was fun to get to do just that! In all by the end of the trip we played Sophia's Tea Party Game, Kid's Sequence, Phase 10, Bunco, Banana Grams and Yahtzee. 

My Dream Vacation - Day 2

On Monday morning we woke up and were treated to a nice breakfast by my parents. They made pancakes, sausage and eggs. After getting all ready we thought it would be great to just explore the community. We took a walk and found The Stump! It's a huge stump that they've hollowed out and built it into a playhouse. 

Here's the view of the front! 

The kids thought it was pretty fun! 

Who doesn't love to climb all over a huge tree! 

My big brave boys! 

After that we walked over to a park that was on the map. It was a total hit with all the kids. 

Zipline!!! The kids could spend all day on this thing! 

Thankfully there were lots of adults to help out with the zipline and the swings. In all there were 8 adults to 7 kids! 

Since it had rained the night before and the play structure wasn't in the sun yet...it was a bit wet. 

Zeke could spend literally all day being swung! 

At first Ella did not want to go on the zipline, but then I decided to. I didn't say anything to her at all about it....I just went. Lo and behold a few minutes later she was all ready to give it a try! 

Ella and Anna havin' a good time! 

Caleb...bouncin'! 

On our walk back to the house we came across the shuffleboards. Michael and I LOVE shuffleboard. Yes...I know that makes us sound like we are in are 70's, but it's super fun! We learned to play when we were on our cruise to Alaska...yes with a ton of 70 year olds! Hey old people are fun! 

Stephie and Pa enjoying the porch swing! 

Uncle Ry's photo op! 

During this trip I knew I wanted to go do something fun with Ella just her and I. I wasn't sure if the shop was open yet so Michael, Jack and I walked to the little town area to check it out. 

At the town area they had these cute picture panels. Jack loves this sort of thing. I love that he's making the baby Sasquatch cry! 

And of course the puppy was panting! He's a nut! The shop ended up not being open yet so we headed back to the house. 

Even though there was the downstairs playarea it was a bit small when the trundle bed was pulled out. So most of the time the kids ended up playing upstairs in Bill & Christina's room....they were smart and brought toys for their kids. I was running on fumes when we were packing so all I brought for the kids were board games. 

Jackson definitely enjoyed playing Lego's with Caleb! 

After lunch Ella and I headed into town to go have some girl fun! 

She had no idea what we were going to do. Imagine That is a little ceramic shop. I LOVE painting ceramics! I used to do it on a monthly basis before kids. I've always wanted Ella to do this, but I also wanted her to actually be able to do a good job....this stuff is expensive! 

The first thing we did was check out all the different things to choose from and then once she chose her special thing she had to wash her hands. 

I washed all the dust off so she could start painting. While I was washing it off I noticed that the wing was cracked right where it connects to the body...there were actually 2 or 3 other ones that were like that on the shelf. I was so happy I noticed as it could have really cracked in the kiln and Ella would have been devastated! I wanted to paint something myself, but I knew that she would need my help and I wanted to be able to focus on her and like I said...expensive! 

What I had her do was focus on one part at a time. I didn't want to get all the different colors we'd need right off the bat and then end up with a brown looking fairy since she'd mixed all the colors. She did great! She picked out on color at a time and then I just showed her where to paint. 

Here was the example that was on the shelf. This helped her know where the hair ended and the dress began.

She worked so hard. She did have me paint one wing because her hands were getting tired....she did all the dots though. I also helped fix the fairy's face when she would get other colors on it. The only other thing I did were her eyebrows and her pupils. Other than that it was all Ella! 

Doesn't she look so pretty! 

We were the other ones in the shop at that time...after Labor day it's very quiet in the town. The lady was so nice. Ella was curious about why she couldn't take her fairy home so I asked if she could see the kiln and learn about what was going to happen. She even showed us the glaze that she dips everything in prior to putting it in the kiln. It was pretty cool! 

One thing she lets the kids do is put their hand print on the ceiling tiles. She always has one tile down so it's not like the kids are standing on tables putting their hand prints up there. 

Of course Ella picked bright pink just like her shirt! 

Ta Da!!! She wrote her first name by her hand print and then I wrote her last name and the year. It was such a special time with my girl! We had to leave her fairy behind, but we were able to pick it up the day we left for home. 

Uncle Ry and Aunt Stephie actually ended up going to the shop later and painting some stuff themselves. It was lots of fun and we will definitely go again the next time we visit Seabrook. 

Later that night after our Mexican fiesta and my birthday cake celebration...we took the kids over to the indoor pool and had lots of fun swimming around. The kids were pretty tuckered out after that so it was baths and bedtime. 

My Dream Vacation - Day 1

This dream started about 5 years ago on a MOPS retreat to Ocean Shores. One of our Mentor Moms Diane had just taken a little drive with her husband up to this new community called Seabrook. She just thought it was the cutest place and there was a quaint little cafe so she thought it would be fun for us to go explore and have some dessert. After eating our yummy dessert we took a nice stroll around the community...much of it was still under construction at the time. 3 1/2 years and lots of dreaming later and I decided it was time to see if I could make my dream come true. I asked my parents, my brother and sister-in-law and some close friends that are more like family...The Kuch's...if they wanted to help me make this dream come true for my 35th birthday which was a year and a half away. They all thought that was a great idea!

 After searching online a bit I had found what I thought was going to the perfect house, but it turned out to be a bit too big and expensive for us. That's when I found the perfect house to rent. My parents, The Kuch's and Michael and I and our kiddos all stayed in The Oyster House. Ryan and Steph rented The Little Pearl which is the carriage house to The Oyster House. It was great! 

Literally just a couple hours after getting home from Indianapolis we were all packed and ready to head to Seabrook. We knew that our house probably wasn't going to be ready since we were there before 3pm, but we figured we would go explore the beach until it was. Luck would have it that the moment I walked into the rental office was the moment the cleaning staff called and said our house was ready. Sweet!

Ryan and Steph were checking into their house while we were unpacking ours. My parents and The Kuch's hadn't arrived yet. The funny thing is the house had come available so quickly that they hadn't even had time to change the code on the lock to our new code. I had to call the office and they had to send a maintenance guy out to reprogram the lock for us. Once we got inside the floors were still wet from them being mopped! I'd say we really took advantage of the house as quickly as we could. 

Right when you walk in the door you are in the living room. It was nice and cozy...we did some rearranging of the furniture though...the couch on the right didn't make sense so we moved it so it was facing the fireplace. 

Here's a view from the kitchen facing the dining room and living room. I absolutely LOVED that dining room table. It was big and heavy and the benches were great to fit lots of people on. Plus if you're not sitting on them they can completely push under the table. 

Here's the view of the kitchen from the dining room. This kitchen was huge...almost too huge. It was hard to find things, but it was great since we had 13 people staying in one house. The doorway on the right was the door into the room Owen and Jack shared. 

Here's the other side of the kitchen...there were a total of 3 sinks! 

Here's a better view of the kitchen. In the back you'll see there is a built-in nook. There were 7 kids...4 of ours and 3 of The Kuch's and they all fit in that nook. It was great! 

Here's a view of Owen and Jack's room. It's technically the game room since it's the room with the Wii in it, but that nice bed has a trundle and it worked perfectly for the boys. It also became the downstairs playroom for the kids. That first night Owen and Jack were actually up at 2am playing on the Wii so after that the controllers stayed in our room. 

Michael and I had the room on the first floor. When you came in the house it was the door to the right. It had a nice King size bed. I forgot to take a picture when we first got there when the bed was made all nice. This was taken when we were packing up to leave. Also on the first floor was our families bathroom. There were 3 bathrooms in the house so each family got their own so we didn't have to share. 

Something that surprised me was this little nook under the stairs. It was in the hallway across from the bathroom. There was nothing said about it on the website at all. It was such a cute way to use that wasted space under the stairs. There were two of those magnet boards in there. Of course the kids thought this was pretty cool! 

There was this cool landing area upstairs that ended up being a great place for the kids to play. 

Here is a picture of the stairs and that door straight across is Ga-Ga & Pa's room. 

Upstairs there were a total of 3 bedrooms....1 for Bill & Christina and 1 for their kids and then the Master Suite was for my parents. 

Here's their master bath and since there wasn't technically enough beds to fit all of us Zeke and Ella ended up on pallets in the master bedroom closet. 

That first night it was pretty rainy so we mostly stayed in and got settled. My brother made a nice BBQ dinner for all of us. The above picture is the view from Ryan and Steph's carriage house looking down on The Oyster Houses back porch. So pretty! By this point I hadn't really slept since since Saturday morning and it was Sunday night so I was ready for some good sleep!