We had such a blast at Daytona Beach last month. Every year my family vacations at Daytona for the 4th of July and it is always one of the highlights of our year. The vacationers included my grandmother, her husband, my aunt, uncle, mother, Chad, Everly and myself. We always rent two condos on the same floor and it is so nice and convenient. Chad and I love vacationing with extended family as it means extra hands for baby duty.
Last year was Everly's first trip to the beach and she did so well with the sand and ocean. I knew she was too little to remember it this year so I was anxious to see how she handled it again. Turns out she still loves it. She sat in the sand and dug holes and put sand in and out of her buckets for hours. She kept dragging Chad and I out to the ocean every few minutes too. We even saw a couple of manatees! But it was all fun and games until the salt water got in her eyes. Then she was over it. Time to go to the pool.
We got her a Puddle Jumper and let her float around the pool without having to hang on to us and she became so brave in the water. She would get in and out of the pool over and over so she could jump in all by herself. She even let Chad throw her in the air a couple of times without catching her. She would go under water without fear and thought it was so funny to try and blow bubbles. And by blow bubbles I mean opening her mouth and drinking the water. Gross.
On the 4th we watched fireworks in all directions from the beach while we lit sparklers. Everly was amazed by it all. I think she had a blast.
Overall we enjoyed a lazy week of lounging on the beach, and finished the days with dinner out together and card games at night. On top of it all, the weather was absolutely beautiful. No schedule. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. My favorite.
We took this picture on the boardwalk last year. So fun to see how she's grown. Joe's Crab Shack was our favorite place we ate dinner, which is where she acquired the Minnie in the picture that she refused to let go of.
These donuts were amazing. Highly recommend Donnie's if you're ever in the area with a sweet tooth.
We decided to drive through the night again as it seemed to work really well for Everly last year. This year wasn't quite so easy. She woke up about five/six hours into the trip at 3 in the morning and WOULD NOT GO BACK TO SLEEP. It was two hours of screaming/crying fits. Poor Chad was exhausted from driving through the night and we had just switched places so he could rest while I drove. Our patience was pretty thin at that point. So Chad opted to continue driving while I got in the back to try anything possible to calm her down. By 5:00 am she had finally gone back to sleep. So I drove a couple of hours to let Chad get some rest. Everly woke again for the last hour and a half of the trip and we entertained her with donuts and candy. But other than those two hours, she did really well for the 14 hour drive.
The drive home was a little worse. She was up a lot of the night, though not quite as upset as she was the trip down. Once morning broke and we stopped for breakfast she PUKED all over herself and her carseat. Lovely. We thought we were done for. But thankfully she didn't get sick the rest of the trip and was overall pretty well behaved.
But we had a fantastic week and treasure the time we got to spend with our family. We can't wait to go back already!
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