A Get-away to the Beach

With Lily heading back to school very soon, we knew we wanted to do something fun as a family before she leaves, and my sister, Wendy, offered to let us use her beach house in Port Aransas. Since the boys did not have school on Friday, we decided to make a long weekend of it, and headed a couple hours south to the Golf Coast, and it was the perfect mini-vacation.

Wendy and Tod's beach house is just beautiful, and only steps away from the ocean. 

Lily and Arthur shared the bunk beds, and Derek got a room all to himself, while Kevin and I had another room and bathroom to ourselves.

Since we arrived after dark on Thursday, we got up and decided to explore, but before that, Kevin and I went to get donuts for the family at a cute little place called The Donut Palace. The kids were very happy to wake up to donuts, and then were ready to explore! Our first stop was the beach!

We loved the little path and then the bridge over the dunes to get to the beach. I also loved how our section of the beach was deserted.
My brother-in-law builds these beach homes, and they use theirs as a model home of sorts. We loved seeing homes in the neighborhood with signs that said they were being built by Arbogast Homes. The neighbored is still being built, but is a pretty fabulous community with a pool and a wonderful playground. We loved exploring.

Arthur especially loved the playground, and once we got home, asked if Lily and Derek could take him back to play at it, which they kindly did.

While they were playing, I took advantage of their absence to hide their Easter eggs all over the house. Even though Easter isn't until next week, Lily will be back at school, and so I wanted to make sure she didn't miss out on the fun. Because it was a different location and situation, instead of the kids hiding each other's eggs, I hid them all.

They had the best time hunting for eggs all over the house - including around Kevin, who was happily watching the Masters golf tournament while they searched around him. Ha ha!
After they had each found all their eggs and chocolate bunnies, there was a special golden egg with Lego Star Wars the Skywalker Saga in it, which made them extra happy.  They couldn't wait to play it!

After lunch, the kids and I headed out to the beach to play. While they dug in the sand and played in the waves, I took a walk down the beach to explore. All three kids love the ocean - they love playing in the water, digging in the sand, and searching for shells. Both Lily and Derek spent their early life living by the ocean, and so it is almost like coming home for them.After the beach, we grabbed Kevin and headed to the pool, and it was beautiful and deserted, which was just how we like it. And the water was warm, so I even joined in on the fun. I especially loved how the infinity edge made it look like it flowed right into the lake.
After the pool, Kevin and I left the kids to make themselves dinner, and we went out on a date to a fun little local place called Irie's. It was really fun, and we even stopped at a couple of the nearby beach shops before we headed back to the house and watched a movie together as a family. (We watched The Ryan Project - which was good, albeit a tiny bit too intense and too much swearing for Arthur. Luckily he didn't know what the words were or what they meant. I didn't realize it was PG-13 when I picked it.) 

On Saturday morning, I woke up early and went down to the beach to get pictures of the sunrise. It was so beautiful! I sure do love the ocean.
I even found a broken sand dollar as I was exploring, which I brought back for Arthur. It was just the Seagulls, Sand Pipers and myself out there, which made it even better.
After I got back and we had breakfast, we thought it would be fun to take a drive in Wendy and Tod's golf cart. Everybody in town was driving them along the beach, and we went down pretty far to see what we could see about the big "Sandfest" that was going on. Unfortunately, the wind picked up a ton!! We were being blown away, and so I don't think the kids enjoyed the ride as much as they might have otherwise liked. Oh well, it was still really cool.

Then we had lunch and headed out to the little town of Port Aransas to show the kids the cool shark shop and get ice cream in town.

The ice cream was yummy, but I think the kids liked the cool picture taking cut-outs even more than the ice cream - ha ha!

It was so super windy, that although we tried to go to beach again, we only lasted about a minute because the sand was scouring us as it blew in the wind. Not fun. Luckily, the pool was completely sheltered from the wind, so we went there and they had a blast swimming and playing, and I read my book and relaxed.

Eventually I came back to the house to make dinner, and the kids came back to eat and get ready for bed. Even though they were wiped out, Arthur really wanted to play some of the cool yard games in the neighborhood, and so he and I ventured out to play corn hole and ladder ball. The wind was still pretty crazy, so we didn't last long, and ended up just playing Five Crowns instead. It was a much better choice ;).

On Sunday morning, we cleaned up, changed the sheets, and got the house back in tip-top shape for Wendy, and then we hit the road for home, making it just in time for the ward that meets at noon at our building.

It was such a lovely and much needed weekend. As we were taking it easy and having fun, I realized that it was the first time in about a year that I actually just got to be still and rest. Between preparing to move and sell our house, moving, and then buying/renovating a house, as well as working full time and more, life has been crazy and hectic. I am so grateful that my sister was so gracious as to let us use her lovely beach house. It reminded me about the time when, years ago, she let us stay her condo in Destin, and just like now, it was a desperately needed vacation and recharge for us all.