Mystery Road Trip 2012

Last Tuesday, I had a really long day at the hospital in Dallas.  We joke that I always always always think an appointment will be quick.  I somehow believed I would be in and out of the hospital in under an hour. 

Ha.

Nearly four hours later, I loaded up two tired kids and a tired mommy & headed home.

I needed a break.

So Wednesday night, my mom booked a condo on the TX coast.

I told the kids they were taking a mystery road trip.  I hired a sitter and ran to the Dollar Store where I gathered various items (frisbee, sand toys, island fruit snacks, sunglasses, etc) and then I wrapped them up in brown paper sacks.

On Thursday afternoon, we loaded the car and hit the road.  As we drove, we occasionally let the kids open their sacks of clues.

It was so fun to surprise them with our destination!

We also had a bag of "random acts of kindness" - Will could draw an activity such as "buy a treat for someone else in the gas station" or "complement someone on the beach" or "share a toy" and then we would do that activity.  That was fun & I think I'll keep it up this summer! (I'll post more on that later.)

By Thursday afternoon, we were on the coast!

Friday morning, we loaded up the wagon and our backs with beach stuff and hit the beach...

except when we crossed the street, we looked down and saw broken sea wall - no beach!  So we walked about a mile to locate sand. :)

We knew R would have cracked up if he had seen us with all of our stuff hauling down the seawall.

My kids love the beach.  They are easy travelers - so content with some buckets of water and sand and shovels.

 Both kids were pretty brave- Will finally realized he can run into the water all by himself to refill buckets and play and Ellie would quietly start to scoot off to the water! 

We played frisbee

 Will learned to fly a kite all by himself!

 And they love the ocean!  

 We love to jump the waves!

 Then each day after lunch on the beach and more swimming and digging (& reading for Lovie & I), we would load up and head back to the condo for naps.

 One evening, we made a "reservate" under Will's name at the Rainforest Cafe.  The kids loved it.

(Mostly.  Ellie did not like the gorillas.)

 This particular Rainforest Cafe is the only one in the country with a river raft ride.  The kids LOVED it.

 Ellie has started to pull up from a seated position (in a chair or on a stool.)

This is so exciting!!!

And kept her very busy on the beach!

Sweet siblings.  I love watching them play together.

 Ellie eating sandy grapes.  Yum.

 A drive-thru at Sonic...

via wagon.

(Will thought this was awesome.  When he is a teenager he will be mortified.)

 And nothing like the crashing waves and hot sun and hot walk in a wagon on a concrete seawall to lull a little one to sleep.

We swam daily in the awesome pool.  The kids loved jumping off the rocks.  Sorry I don't have many pics of Will swimming - his swimming is awesome this summer.  He was often busy swimming across the condo pool or even playing pool tag with older kids. 

One night, we had a special treat and left Ellie with Lovie so we could go night swimming together.  Do you remember night swimming as a kid?  It just seems so magical.

Definitely a fun memory for the two of us!

 Reading

I think we may have to make summer mystery road trips a new tradition.  It was such a fun way to spend a weekend!

Will's love languages are touch & quality time.  While we spend lots of time cuddling, sometimes I struggle to find time in the day to really play hard with him and just focus on him.  But when we are on trips, it is so much easier to focus on him and play and I love filling his cup like that.

Yes.  I do believe we will do more mystery trips!