Beachin'

Rollin' white sand, cold can koozie in my hand, just a summertime strolling
Chillin', breazin', sippin', singin' whoaoaoh

Beachin'



Sorry got a little carried away and cant think of the beach without Jake Owen's song popping in my head. When we arrived it was perfect from the weather to the non Jellyfish, water, waves were mellow and the kids were ready to get down there and hop on in.



 My Rhett man was so glad he decided to come and he had the best time.
 He spent the majority of his time trying to master the skim board. Bless his poor heart he took some spills and face plants and got back up and would try it again.

This was constant and non stop







 

Maci and Bradley found the Yolo board and took it out for a paddle. I think my little brother got the best end of the deal. lol This was not the easiest thing to master.

 

 



This little fish obsessed boy loved seeing all the fish swim by and it was killing him to catch a few

Mauri found a really big shell and it was so pretty but when we were out in the boat diving for sand dollars she dropped it and we never found it again. She was heart broken. But we did find a lot of sand dollars. 

 

 

The little bro who just celebrated his 21st birthday a week before the beach had made a couple of comment about how boring it would be going to the beach with women. He started off with a bang then I must say this big sis who doesn't play beer pong was way ahead and he even had to step back and say ok this is embarrassing I'm a college kid and getting beat by my old big sis. We had a good laugh and finally he did come back and beat me. I had on cup left forever and that one cup got me. 

 

Love this picture

Mom, MIL, Grandma whose last day of radiation was the day before we left. I

I am so glad she was able to make it and had a great time. 

 

Maci's early morning walk on the beach she found a leftover grab from the night before and again another perfect day and clear water



 

The kids and I all agreed we need longer time at the beach,

 we have decided a month long trip will be better. LoL 



 

 

Maci has gotten to the age where pictures are not something she wants to be part of unless its snapchat. So getting in a picture with all of us may or may not have been made with threats.

Can you tell how happy these kids are to take pictures with their Mom

 

Mauri has become a beach babe and could see her life here



 

You can take the kid out of the country but not the country out of the kid:

he tried catching this poor bird over and over. Even diving into the sand



Rhett found some big kids who tried to teach him how to do it.

These young men who looked to be high school maybe c=early college kids took time out of their day to help Rhett and I appreciate that. Their Mommas raised these kids right and should be very proud. I mean hello young adults did not come to the beach to play with a 7 year od boy they came to take a peek at the girls and have a good time but when they came over and talked to Rhett and helped him it made Rhett's day. he thought he was just as big as him. This is the kind of characteristic I am trying to instill in my Rhett man. 

 

No beach trip is complete without taking a boat out to crab island

There were quite a few jelly fish out in crab island but we still managed to enjoy ourself

 

All in all we had a great time and cant wait til next year to do it again so its only fair to end this post with this:

 



How I do it: Packing

I am a list maker so its only right for me to start with making list. I find free pintable's on Pinterest and make them my own. I found this one and loved the colors and the fact that it had boxes that can be checked off. I am currently packing for the beach. There are 4 boxes on this page so for the kids I used them for each day.

For example:

fist box= Day 1: Beach 

Swim cover

Swimsuit

Flip flops

Night time outfit

PJs

Undies

next box: Day 2: Beach

Swim cover

Swimsuit

Flip flops

Night time outfit

PJs

Undies

next box: Day 3: Big Kahunas waterpark

Swim cover

Swimsuit

water shoes

Night time outfit

PJs

Undies

next box: Day 4: Beach

Swim cover

Swimsuit

Flip flops

Night time outfit

PJs

Undies

On the next page I used the boxes for going there outfit, coming home outfit, and extras.

When its time to pack I will make a copy of the list so I have the master one and will get the copy list to the kids and they can pack and check their stuff off in the boxes. They will them bring them to the table or living room rug where the next step is to pack it up in labeled zip lock bags.

I am very visual so I typed up some labels that I could put on the gallon zip lock bags. I didn't put a day because I wanted to be able to use them when I needed them and I can now just write in the day: Day 1, Day 2 and so on. You can also keep the bags and use them on another trip since all I put in them is clean clothes. Of course I use different colors for each kid. I tend to use their favorite color.

 

 Mauri Laken takes after me with OCD so she gets me and my system and loves it while Maci and Rhett would rather just throw everything all into one bag. Then they each have a bag for each day then they also have a bag for swimsuits. Normally I would then place these bags into their own suitcase but since we are going to the beach I have decided to use one big bin and put everything and everyone into that one tub. I will take all these bags and then throw into the gain zip lock with their name on it. When we open the big bin they can pull their giant zip lock out and all of their stuff will be in it instead of every ones mixed up. I also bring a pop up hamper wherever I go and we pop it up throw dirty clothes into it and when we go home I will take a trash bag throw all of those clothes into the big bin then into the washer when I get home.
We can only do one page at a time so we don't get overwhelmed and get all mixed up. I find for me this is the easiest way to do it. I give them one page and when they are finished with that one page and have everything packed up in bags we can move on to the next.

 

 

 I am obsessed with my Erin Condren planner and if you want to see all about it you can read about it

here. Ive also ordered my new one and cant wait for it to come in. I write down in advance al the things I need to do in my planner and this is what it looks like.

 

 



 This is my jewelry organization, no one wants to show up all tangled

This bag is what I call my Bathroom Bag:

It stays packed all the time, the contents contain:

Shower stuff, hair stuff, blow dryer, brush, soap, teeth, deodorant, razor, you know all things involving getting ready except my makeup. 

This bra and panty hard case is a must. One side is for Bras and the other has a pocket for panties. Here is another option but I think it is soft and what I like about hard case is that I don't have to worry about the wire in my bras getting bent out of shape. {No Pun intended}

 

 

I always bring these hangers because we all know there is never enough hangers in the closet where you are staying. They are so skinny and take up such little space. These will be your best friend. 





Beach countdown kids craft



We have been so busy lately that we haven't had time to do some fun summer stuff. The kids are counting down the days until we leave for the beach so I thought why don't we make a countdown. My kids are into artsy stuff and crafts at the moment so it was perfect. I opened the craft bin to see what we had and what we could make and when I saw it I knew exactly what we could do. Maci had a few 4-H projects and a styrofoam ball cut in half was laying on top and as soon as I saw it I thought we could make a jellyfish. We grabbed it and spray painted it them found eyes for it and the kids used pipe cleaners for the legs or whatever they call them.



Everyday when the kids wake up they take turn pulling off a leg. Hopefully this is will give us good luck and we will not see a single jellyfish while at the beach. We have been lucky out of 13 years we have had only 1 bad year with jellyfish.
Now if you have smaller kids you could always cut a shape out and glue it to each leg so they will have a visual of how many days are left. Or you could do like me and the kids count the legs.
We leave on July 26th

#acktdoesNYC our last day

We woke up to a drizzly dreary day but that wasn't going to stop us. With a 5$ umbrella we went on our way. We started on Times Square to do some shopping. Their forever21 was 4 stories and organized and the workers were so helpful I wish our Forever21 was like that. If so I would actually like going to ours.



We stopped in Buddy's Bakery 

I wish I could of taken one of the scrumptious cakes back home with me. 

 

Took 40 million pictures at the Starbuck on their Starbucks cam.

We couldn't figure out where to stand or when it was going to take the picture. 



 

This is where the ball drop on New Years Eve.

Trying to take a group selfie and realizing we should of bought a selfie stick so we could properly take a better selfie. 

My kids would love their toys r us

It was also 4 stories

Guy's American Kitchen & Bar is what we hit up for lunch and it was so good. 



 

Does this look yummy or what

It def was one of the best burgers around



 

Resting my piglets before walking the Brooklyn Bridge

 

We here Brooklyn

 

 On the bridge overlooking the traffic

 

Even though we were to full from lunch and couldn't try Waffles & Dings I still got a picture. 

Wall Street

The Bull is what I wanted to see while in New York 

 

Then we headed over to Battery Park to take a peek at the Boss Lady herself

That night we made a quick change headed out to Broadway

We all knew we wanted to see wicked

 

I was worried how I would do I am not a singing play kind of person.

If they would just talk I could of taken it better but all that damn singing I was checked out after hour number 2.

 

 Our Dinner reservation at Carmines was at 10:30pm so while I was checked out of Wicked and didn't realize it was over a 3 hour play Tiff and I headed to Carmines to grab our table while the other 2 stayed and finished.



 

Its now 11:30pm and we are like OMG how do people eat this late?

Its so packed glad we had our reservation.

This place was highly recommended and I now know why.

Their food is served family style so one plate will feed 4/5 people.

This food so amazing but sadley we couldn't eat all of it. 

 

 

Now it is around 1am and we had to pack up to head back home. This trip was so much fun and I am now counting my days until I can come back. I love this place!