Heaven on Earth aka Our First Family Vacation

We took our first OFFICIAL family vacation just us three over the Christmas holiday break of 2015.

We’ve done a few vacations with extended family (Grandma and Grandpa went with) and we’ve done plenty of long weekends up north at the cabin, but this was the first time it was just me, the husband, and Bean.

And it was magical.

We decided to go back to our favorite ocean side destination: New Smyrna Beach, Florida.

We went for the first time last year with my side of the family and fell in LOVE with the area. When we decided to plan a trip for this winter, it wasn’t even a question where we would go.

We stayed at a new place this time that was even closer to the beach than last year’s trip. Both times we booked off VRBO, which I recommend highly if you’re planning a vacation.

I started off each morning waking up to this view…

Does it get any better than that?! No, it doesn’t.

I woke up each morning, made myself a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts Original Blend coffee (my fav), grabbed my Kindle, and sat out on the balcony taking deep breaths of the refreshing warm, salty air.

The night before we were supposed to leave, a huge snow storm hit Minnesota.

We prayed and prayed that our flight wouldn’t be delayed, my air traffic controller brother kept us up to date with news on our plane, and by some sort of miracle our 7:00 AM flight left pretty much on time (besides a 45 minute delay for de-icing the plane).

You can imagine the relief we felt when we walked off the plane after it landed in Orlando and felt the hot, humid air.

We jumped in the rental car and drove to the beach house as fast as we could. We had sunshine to soak up! Both Bean and I couldn’t get on the beach fast enough that first afternoon…

The first night welcomed us with a gorgeous, pastel colored sunset. This was our view out the front balcony…

This was our view out the back balcony…

After the craziness of selling a house and moving over the holidays, plus taking on some extra time in the studio with my sister being on maternity leave, I can’t fully express how RELIEVED I was to be on vacation. It felt absolutely amazing.

We were blessed with incredibly gorgeous weather and record temps almost the entire time we were there. Every day, Bean would wake up asking, “Can we play on the beach now?” She is definitely my kid.

We made so many awesome sandcastles over our 4 days on the beach. Florida beach sand is so much better than Minnesota beach sand.

We got creative with using washed up seaweed as sandcastle landscaping, and using different sand+water techniques for creating dripping sandcastles.

I think my husband and I might have had more fun with this than Bean did.

Our highlight this year was kicking off the New Year on the beach! Last year we went to bed super early to wake up and head to the Magic Kingdom, this year we bought sparklers and celebrated on the beach.

Our favorite moment was when a crab almost ran across Bean’s feet.

She wasn’t paying attention and this poor, startled beach crab was trying to get out of the way and they almost collided, it was hilarious 😉 She still talks about it.

A low light of the trip? When my husband fell down the concrete steps while carrying 3 beach chairs and a few boogie boards. He decided to reenact it for memory’s sake. I left the last New Smyrna trip with a wicked skim boarding scar, he’s leaving this trip with a few scrapes.

We adored this vacation. We ate dinner at some fantastic places (thanks to Yelp!), we did a little geocaching, we enjoyed the beach, we relaxed sitting outside the local microbrewery, did I mention that we actually RELAXED? It was pure heaven and I dream of going back.

If you’re considering a Florida vacation and not sure where to go, I can’t say enough good things about New Smyrna Beach.