Beach Vacay

Last week we hit the road ways for a little road trip to my Aunt Linda and Uncle Tom’s in Florida.  First of all, Jesus be near.  Driving down brought me closer to heaven.  I almost died and so did a few children.  I will say our iPad was making it’s round between 4 kiddos and other than that there were things like books and paper and pens and scissors and scotch tape to keep them occupied.  And Snacks…let’s not forget Snacks…every mother’s second-hand-man.

Josh Kelley and I realized when we got home how in our entire parenting lives we’ve never washed a carseat liner thing and on this trip we had to do so 3 times all thanks to one blow out swim diaper and two massive pukes.  Like so much puke you must pull over immediately on the side of the road and in one account CUT THE TODDLER’S SHIRT OFF OF HER BECAUSE SHE WAS COVERED IN SO MUCH THROW UP AND THEN THROW AWAY EVERYTHING IN THE NEARBY DUMPSTER.  True story.  Thank goodness for kid scissors because my infamous quilter’s scissors I use for Bible journaling were not in my Bible journaling supplies because they were confiscated by a semi angry South African airline worker in Johannesburg who then pretended to stab me with said scissors because I was a bit ticked they we’re being taken.  Again, true story.  But I digress.

So we spent 4 glorious days on the beach.  The first day started a bit rocky with thunderstorm warnings, whipping cold winds and one stretch of the two adults waiting the rain out in the rain while the kids played their ever loving hearts out.  It was the right move though because then the skies parted and we had only great weather for the rest of our time.

Sea shell collecting was high on the beach activity list.  So many sea shells were collected.  Turns out our current littlest was made for walking the beach and picking up shells.  She walked forever…chatting, finding shells, waving to people…she’s quite the people person and beach walking companion.

Josh and I also scored a date night.  I seriously cannot even remember our last date night that was unrelated to foster care training.  Ha.  It’s been a while so it was nice to get out and alone.  We ate dinner, went to the beach, went to a bar with live music and then visited a local brewery.  Josh also discovered an anchor on the bottom of his cup.  All the heart eyes.

On Father’s Day our littlest went to church with Aunt Linda and Uncle Tom and we headed to the beach super early so we could get back for lunch and other fun Father’s Day plans.  We we’re away from Josh’s dad so we sent Big Daddy a beachy message too 🙂

Obviously, Josh Kelley is totally our Father’s Day jam.  He’s a rare one.  He’s kind and humble and loves Jesus and absolutely cracks me up.  He’s freakin’ hilarious and totally my favorite human.  There’s nothing above or below him he wouldn’t do for us…diapers, laundry, dishes, cooking, anything that needs to be done he’ll do.  He’s not perfect just like the rest of us, but I wouldn’t pick another guy to do this wild life with.

He also was the evil master mind behind burying all our kids and then hitting up the closet bar for lunch.

I kid.  I kid.  We actually enjoyed an awesome seafood lunch with Aunt Linda and Uncle Tom.  And then went to see The Jungle Book.  So so good.  We all loved it.

Aunt Linda and Uncle Tom are always way too good to us.  Besides the beach we played games and watched movies and ate all of Aunt Linda’s yummy food.  We chatted and laughed.  We love being with them and even more I love my kids get to be with them.  I know we are a loud, chaotic and messy bunch.  We try not to be too much of those, but let’s be real…5 kiddos = loud & messy no matter how hard we try.  It’s nice to be loved on and welcomed just as we are.  Makes our hearts soar.  So vacation was 5 stars…just what our bunch needed.

And I’ll leave you with this because I’m clearly a mature mother who only teaches her children very wholesome, moral things and about Jesus.

Happy Tuesday!