We have been planning to go away to S. Padre Island this Christmas break with some friends that we work with, Brad and Emily...everyone, including all of our kids! To some of you, this might not seem like a big deal. BUT, vacationing with friends can be great but it can also be really bad. We, of course, have our 2 kids that are still living at home...Josh (13) and Cami (5). Brad and Emily have 2 kiddos also...ages (almost)3 and about 11 weeks. With all that said...
We had an awesome time! NO problems AT ALL! The girls (Me, Emily, Cami & Gracie) drove down to S. Padre in one car and the boys (John, Brad, Josh & Bennett) drove in another. This was a great arrangement. We, girls, got to chit chat constantly! It was awesome. We stopped in San Marcos to shop a little...nothing major...just a little pit-stop.
We finally arrived in S. Padre at our condo, on Saturday evening. We pretty much unloaded the cars and got all comfy in the condo. And, the condo that we rented was great! It had 3 bedrooms, so Josh even had his own room to hang out in and just be his teen self...Bennett and Cami had some art projects that they were "dying" to work on. Color Wonder finger paint is THE BEST!
Then, we ventured out to see what was all around us on the island. We found a secluded beach and walked around. Saw some people riding horses in the sand. Beautiful scenery!
We worked it out with our friends to have a date night for each couple. We went out on our date one night and they watched the kids...and they went the next night and we watched their kids. John and I went to a nice dinner, did a little shopping and took a walk on the beach where we wrote our names in the sand! It was a really nice break for all of us. The guys even told Emily and I that they decided that we would start doing this more often (watching eachother's kids so that we can have "date nights"). Great job, boys!
We stayed up late every night, slept in every morning, cooked a great late breakfast and cooked awesome dinners in the condo every night. We just did what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it. The kids had very, very few issues! This was wonderful! Cami can be a little stinker, to say the least...but she even did great. She must have even known that Mommy and Daddy really needed this break, even from her stubbornness!
Anyways...we bought a kite there on the island. We spent a day out on the beach and flew the kite, played football, splashed around in the water and just plain had lots of family fun.
We stayed until Thursday morning. Brad and Emily headed toward Tennessee to visit family and we headed toward Corpus Christie to visit some other friends, on our way back home. We finally made it home last night and were glad to sleep in our own bed last night...but I think this was the first vacation that we were not ready to leave! We are planning to go back next year again.
