PJ’s Birthday Celebration at the Beach

PJ turned another year older last week surrounded by family and friends in his happy place: the beach.

Did you know that’s one of his favorite places ever? Besides the farm (or any type of land, really), the beach is where PJ finds peace and relaxation. The saltwater and sand replenish him (both physically and mentally), while the sun seems to just make everything better for everyone. It doesn’t get any better than beach time + family, does it? I’m serious! Can you honestly tell me there’s anything better than a hot, sunny day at the beach with a cool breeze blowing as the smell of salty air fills your nostrils? Nope. I think not!

Since this was our first vacation in over a year, and our first beach trip with the kiddos (and their first time ever going to the beach!!), we wanted to bring as much family with us as we could. This meant both our moms and both our younger sisters. We also invited our bffs Matt & Beau from ProbablyThis, making this trip our 4th vacation together in just over 3 years. Pretty wild, huh? We have so much fun with them and we feel like we can be 100% ourselves around them with zero judgement. Everyone should have at least one friend like that.

We try to travel to 30A (for those unfamiliar, 30A is a stretch of highway in Florida along the gulf, so there’s beautiful, crystal-clear water and white sandy beaches; it’s absolutely gorgeous!) at least once a year, but skipped last year because of the pandemic (though we were thisclose to packing everything and everyone up and driving down their last summer when we felt like we were going out of our minds) and didn’t go in 2019 because we got the kiddos. So this was our first trip down there in two years and boy did we miss it. So much has changed in such a short amount of time!! Houses and buildings that weren’t there before are suddenly built and bustling, and structures that were there before are gone now to make room for new ones. There are some things that never change, though, and the feelings we get when we’re in the ocean are still most definitely the same.

It was fun to experience our favorite area of Florida with our family and friends who haven’t been there before, or if they had, it’s not been in years. It’s an easy place to love, especially because it means we’re all hundreds of miles away from home, a place that we spent so. much. time. at last year (for better or for worse).

Matt & Beau cooked for everyone pretty much the whole time, making the most delicious breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, and I’m pretty sure I weigh 10 lbs more now than I did before I left. But those are happy pounds, so I’m left feeling grateful that they shared their cooking skills with all of us.

They asked me what PJ’s favorite dinner was because they wanted to make it for his birthday (how sweet is that?), so his mom went to the store and bought all of the ingredients to make chicken marsala. I’ve made it a number of times over the years, but mine never tastes like theirs did, because theirs tasted like you were eating at a 5 star restaurant. It was so good. And while their food was delicious, what we enjoyed most was their company: the late night talks, the dinner we were able to sneak off to and eat delicious food and yummy wine at while PJ’s mom watched the kids, catching up after not seeing each other for over two years (which still feels weird to say!).

Matt and Beau were so good with the kids that it seemed like they had known them forever. They would play with them in the water and give them shoulder rides and hold their hands when we would take walks. One day, Matt was heading to the store when our oldest asked him to get him a toy. That’s a common request in our house and if we said yes every time he asked, he would have over a million toys by now. But Matt is apparently 100x nicer than we are and came home with three toys- one for each of them. Incredibly sweet, right? We are so grateful for them and their friendship.

The trip was spent mostly at the beach, where we would be for hours playing in the water with the kids, building sand castles, laying out, burying our toes in the sand (our nails have never looked better 😂), walking around Rosemary Beach and looking at the beautiful houses, eating so much food, and maybe doing a little daydreaming. Daydreaming about what? That might be a conversation for another time, but just know that for now, we’re feeling so inspired and excited!

The trip home took three hours longer than it should have, and it was definitely harder driving back than it was going down, but all together I’d say our first long road trip as a family of 5 was a success. iPads were charged, snacks were packed, and we all settled into the 99’ Land Cruiser (which gave us zero issues the entire time!) for the seven hour drive to the beach.

We miss Florida (and spending every day with Matt and Beau and our family!), but we’re already looking at rentals for later on in the summer. Maybe there will be a beach trip part two in a few months?? OH! One last thing. While we were there we received a text message with the most amazing news. Can’t wait to share it with you!!!

For now, though, it feels good to be home with the kiddos and our animals and the memories we made last week. Here’s to many more beach trips in the future!!!