Summer Vaycay: Getting There

On Saturday, June 25th, we set off on our first big family road trip since the summer after Lucy was born three years ago. Our destination: Gulf Shores, Alabama!

We picked Gulf Shores because we'd never heard of it and so many of our friends had been and recommended it. It was also notably cheaper than Florida and we'd heard it was less crowded. Win win.

Leg 1: Oklahoma

We drove to Tulsa (a journey we've made many many times before) and stayed at my brother's house. We ate at our favorite pizza restaurant (Hideaway Pizza) and went to their rockin' church. Then it was up and at 'em early the next morning.

Isn't Sister cute with her little magnetic fish puzzle?

Leg 2: Texas & Louisiana

On our way out of OK, we stopped and got a selfie with the Capitol. My kids are obsessed with Capitols.

We decided to go through Ft. Worth because Husband has cousins there whom we love dearly and haven't seen for ages. So after four hours of these types of activities in the car,

And Brother with his. He did 80% of it on his own.

we were ready for something besides the inside of Big Blue. Rick's cousin works at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and has for years, but we figured, since it was a Sunday, that wasn't an option. However, not only was it open, but she offered to take the kids on a gallery walk and let them do some actual art!

Oh, Sister.

It was so much fun. I even did some art myself.

And, to end our Texas visit, we ate at the best taco joint in all of Ft. Worth. I ordered the trailer park and it was delicious!

After that, we hoofed it to Louisiana, where we got a hotel in Shreveport and swam, ate Wendy's for dinner, and crashed early.

Leg 3: Mississippi & Alabama
I forgot to mention that I had done a TON of prepwork for the car. I wanted this to be fun and memorable for the kids so I put together all these busy-bags in the hopes that they wouldn't want to watch the iPad the entire time. I also made sure to get Brother a journal in the hopes that he would write his favorite parts of the trip down. But the best thing we did was download one of these:

for each state. We printed two of each and then each time we entered a new state, the kids got the new sheet to color. One of my favorite things about this process was how both my kids wanted me to look up a picture the actual flag, Brother so he could diligently copy it and match all the colors, and Sister so she could color it pink.

We stopped near Baton Rouge and ate seafood for lunch and then THE MOST EXCITING PART OF THE TRIP SO FAR HAPPENED. And we weren't even expecting it! The GPS took us to a toll ferry. That's right - we drove our car onto a ferry boat!

 

The kids FREAKED OUT. It was so much fun to watch. I had done this during my LA trip several years ago, but on that one cars were packed so tight and it was for such a short time that no one got out. This one was 30 minutes, so we got out and enjoyed the view!

But you guys, hands down, the highlight for me was when Brother, who sounded like a broken record with his wows and awesomes, looked at me and said, "Mommy, can I go get my journal and write in it right now?"

I'm not going to lie - there were tears. Yes, son, you can. Write your little heart out.

And then, we arrived at the condo, we ate dinner, and we did this:

It's hard to put this part of the experience into words. There is something amazing about firsts. Your first first day of school, your first lost tooth, your first time on an airplane. But the ocean is not like school or teeth or airplanes. The ocean is wild. It's fierce and majestic and formidable. It's like magic.  And getting to introduce it to my children is something I will always, always treasure.