A First....

Our first family vacation...

...I could just picture it:

Pristine, white sand beaches, shades of teal waters and baby blue skies, frosty, umbrella-ed pina coladas and waiters named Sean Paul at my beckon call.....everything I dreamed of.


No wait.

Uhhhhh. Hmmmm. I forgot to add in a 14 hour drive with a 3 year old

and a 10 month old

and a 33 year old. Oh, and no childcare and a husband that would rather lay out at the resort pool and refuse to go to the beach, leaving me with two kids, a 50 ton wagon, a Cannon camera to take fabulous vacation shots, 1 bottle of water and sandy snacks......not to mention one child who wants to eat sand and the other who demands that I help him dig a 3 ft deep hole.

Ahhhhhh. Paradise.


Panama Beach, Florida.

It was beautiful. And much needed.

Going to the beach is not in any way an easy task with an almost four year old and a baby. In fact, just visualizing our entrance is a bit embarrassing--dragging towels and bags and sand toys, loaded up in a wagon that might as well be a 50 ton elephant; dropping random shovels and pails; steering a wandering child; hoisting camera cases and diaper bags, dodging "Mam, could you use some help?" offers with forced smiles and fake "No, we got this" responses. It's a lot of work. But then there's this.

And this.....

...which is undeniably worth it.







And it was. Worth it.



We got our hands......and snacks sandy.

We got our toes wet. And we made memories. And we laughed.

We only stayed a total of 30 minutes that first day, but we did it. We made a first. A first memory of Mommy, Bubba, and Sissy at the beach.




This photo of Shores of Panama by Oaseas Resorts is courtesy of TripAdvisor


The resort had EVERYTHING that we could ever want or need and made the thought of traipsing to the beach a hindrance. We decorated water bottles, tye-dyed Onesies, and painted "dead fish shirts".

We hunted for crabs. Every.Single.Night. We sang karaoke and drank expensive frozen drinks.


We played "Hot Potato" and "Got Yo Feet" until the sun went down and fell asleep with the smell of sunscreen in our hair.

And in the morning we woke to Taylor Swift blaring on the speakers.

Some days we slept til 10.......and some days we never even saw the water.

We played Putt Putt and Skee Ball, drove Bumper Boats

and raced cars, and dined on Dippin' Dots.

While Daddy went on a birthday-deep-sea-fishing-excursion

We had fun in the sun!

We shopped til we dropped, feasted on Parmesan Crusted Grouper and Tilapia Nachos,

and jumped in a 95 degree bounce house.




Took pictures of God's majestic backdrop and sat in seats too big for our britches!

We stopped for ice cream.......several times.





Some nights we stayed up late just so we could go " night-swimming".....

And the next day we slept til 10 and wandered out to the beach with our pasty white bodies and our SPF 90 to do it all over again.

The last day we stopped for one last glimpse of Paradise.

I grabbed my camera and my son and we ran down the sandy boardwalk so fast and jumped into the squeaky sand for one.last.money shot.

We bottled up sand and shells and all of our beautiful memories that day.

And now that bottle sits on a shelf to remind us of our perfect first family vacation.