The beach! Our first trip as a family of four + visiting grandparents!

Saturday morning the four of us made the trek to Panama City Beach, FL for our first mini-vacation as a family of four, and it went great! (All things considered!) We booked a reasonably priced ocean front suite with a kitchen and living room area and a bedroom with a door that closed, which was key to the kids being able to sleep. We had a blast playing in the sand, swimming in the ocean, jumping into the pool, watching movies, reading books, going to Gulf World, and visiting with my parents who met us there! Olivia was VERY sad to go! (I thought I would be sad, too, but three nights was just long enough to make me ready for Leo to start sleeping better. He was up A LOT!!)

The first day we beat Mom and Dad there, so we hit the beach on our own. We found a great little penninsula with shallow water and good sand for building sandcastles. Leo and I liked the water a lot! Nicholas and Olivia worked on sandcastles!

Then, we played in the pool for a while and took a snack break.

The next day we repeated the beach and pool trips, took naps, and went out for dinner. It's hard to go out with kids, so we picked a kid-friendly place complete with playset on the beach! We ate in the rest of the time. Grandpa was great helping with kids that night!

Mom took some pictures of us that evening, too!

We hit Gulf World on Monday morning since it was raining a bit, and the kids loved the animals!

After another afternoon of nap, beach, and pool, and an evening of watching the dancing/singing parts of Sound of Music or White Christmas with the grandparents, we fed the birds on the beach for the second morning in a row. The kids threw some bread to the birds, but we mostly watched Grandpa! 

These trips and activities so remind me of all the great memories I have from being a kid with my parents, grandparents, and cousins at the beach! So fun! I'm so thankful that Nicholas was up for it and so were my parents! I hope all the cousins can come in years to come!