St. Pete Beach, Florida

 Last week we took a family vacation to St. Pete’s Beach, Florida. This area was hit hard by two hurricanes in the fall (Helene and Milton) but we decided to stick with our plans since the hotels and restaurants that are open surely need the business.

We have been to this area many times (usually Clearwater), but this was our first time visiting in January. I liked dedicating all of December to the holiday season, but it was cooler in January. Our temps were in the low 50’s and 60’s, but we still spent almost every minute outside and had a great time.

Our first day / night we spent at our hotel, having drinks at the beach bar, playing in the sand and wandering down the beach to Salty’s at the Tradwinds. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn - which has super cute boho beach vibes in the lobby and a perfect outdoor space. The boys used the turf all weekend for soccer and football.

Our second day was spent at Legoland. We slept in a bit and then spent the day at the park until closing time. While all the kids had been there before, Brecken was only 3 last time so he had been asking to go again. Ryder isn’t a big ride guy, but the other boys went on pretty much every ride. We had perfect weather for the event and almost no lines. Favorites from the park were the mini Lego city and the 4D couch ride. 

We ended the day with dinner and Mastry’s (kids had Culver’s on the 90 minute drive). That place had cool vibes and good food, so we actually went back as a date later in the trip, too :)

On Friday, we departed early for a fan boat tour in Tampa Bay. This was such a cool experience. We had a great guide - with headsets to hear him educate us on the area and local wild life. Throughout the two, we drove in and out of rivers and bays in both shallow and deep water and got out a few times to walk around islands looking at plants, crabs and animal tracks. One thing Shawn & I loved was the soundtrack we could hear through our headsets of the kids chatting and giggling through the entire ride! 

We spent the rest of the day relaxing by the pool, playing on the beach and having dinner and drinks at Coconut Charlie’s listening to live music. 

The rest of the weekend was spent playing on the beach, visiting more beach bars for live music, sneaking out for a few dates in the evening, playing mini golf and feeding gators, visiting the bird sanctuary, spending tons of time on the hotel turf watching the kids play games they made up, enjoying everyone go to bed so nicely each night all in one room, laying in hammocks, playing rounds of pool at Sea Dogs, eating alligator at Crabby Bills, having giant bowls of ice cream from Baskin Robbins across the street, lots of walks on the beach, Logan and Shawn running Logan’s first 10k (on the sand)…

Our last day was spent at Life Time Tampa Harbour Island. We played pickle ball, had lunch, had a couple beers and went swimming / sat by the outdoor pool. 

We also walked along the river downtown before catching our flight.

At the airport, the Delta pilots also let Logan announce our departure over the speaker system!! He had told them he plans to go to UND to be a pilot :)

Overall, there was much less sunshine than we expected for FL, but we loved the active trip and were truly able to slip into vacation mode right away.

Maine | Day 6

We woke up to a bit of rain this morning, which made it a perfect morning to walk around town while the trails dried out. 

Everyone picked out a souvenir (t-shirt, sweatshirt, dragon for Brecken - haha). I enjoyed a maple latte from Acadia Perk while we shopped :)

Afterwards, we ate a picnic lunch at the Foxx’s hotel and then continued on to Sand Beach as a launching pad for a couple hikes the group wanted to do. 

The two hikes on the agenda today were Beehive and Precipice. Both have a reputation for being difficult with shear cliff drop-offs and rebar drilled into rocks for hikers to scale faces of stone. 

Everyone (except Brecken and I) did Beehive and enjoyed it.

Shawn, Brandon, Gratia and Logan continued on to do Precipice while the rest of us swam and played at Ocean Beach. 

Brecken loves playing football in the sand and also spent quite a bit of time working on a sand fort with driftwood he collected.

After around 4 hours of hiking and beaching, we showered up and headed to town for dinner. 

This was our last night with the Foxx family. We ate at Thirsty Wale Tavern, followed by ice cream at Side Treats, a beer at Fog Town and a hung out at their place for a bit afterwards. It was so fun that we were all able to explore together on this trip!

Maine | Day 5

We are loving our stay at Explore Acadia Cottages. We start the morning with coffee on the screened porch, appreciate the shuttle into town to avoid paying to park and seem to have everything we need in our little house.

Our Day 5 adventures started with a morning walk out to Bar Island. This is a ‘hike’ that needs to be done at low tide and finished in a timely manner so you don’t get stuck for hours on the island! Once high tide rolls in, the walking path to the island is under water. 

Next up was a 14 mile gravel bike ride from town (Acadia Bike Rental) and around Acadia’s Eagle Lake. We had hybrid bikes, but the way out was pretty challenging as it was a gradual up hill until we hit the turning point on the lake. But the kids did great and we enjoyed a lakeside picnic about 1/3 of the way in.

After biking, we spent some time at the Foxx’s hotel so the kids could swim. They were also able to check out some sea creatures at an educational booth in the hotel’s backyard.

To end the day, everyone hung out at our rental, playing soccer in the field, having a pasta and pizza dinner, and s’mores by the bonfire. 

Maine | Day 4

With today being the last day at this cottage, I woke up early enough to enjoy coffee on the porch before anyone else woke up and then played quite a few rounds of Uno during breakfast. This was such a great routine at this house.

With a checkout of 10am, everyone helped out with prepping to leave the house on time. 

Our next adventure was sailing Camden harbor and shoreline on the Schooner Surprise! We had about an hour drive to the town of Camden, with only one stop to take a picture in front of a special sign :)

We killed a little time at Sea Dog Brewing Company nearby while waiting for our boarding time.

The Surprise sailboat was 57’ long, typically carried 18 passengers (although today there were much less) and was 106 years old! 

There wasn’t much wind, so we had to use the motor most of the time, but that meant Logan got to drive for quite awhile! And he was able to raise one of the sails. Such a fun experience for him. We enjoyed seeing the shoreline from a different perspective and our stomach's appreciated the calm day at sea :)

Afterwards, we had lunch at Harbor Dogs (in the harbor parking lot) - enjoying shrimp tacos while watching the harbor activity. Great food, great view.

We then finished our trek to our next rental home - Acadia Cottages (and a quick stop for groceries at Walmart).

The little house is tiny in comparison to the 100+ year old place in Bristol, but has everything we need to be a base camp for our Acadia adventures. And it has a large shared yard for the boys.

For dinner, we met the Foxx family at the Side Street Cafe for more seafood, some cocktails, and some mocktails (for the kids). As a reward for their good work packing up the cabin this morning, we treated them to self serve ice cream at an ice cream shop next door.

Our last stop of the evening was at Atlantic Brewing Company. As usual, everyone went to sleep quick and slept solid after another day of fresh air!

Maine | Day 1 and 2

Our first few days in Maine have been filled with lovely weather, good food and some time exploring.

After landing on Friday around noon, we headed to the cutest brewery (which happened to be on brewery row!) and met the Foxx family for lunch and drinks. Even though the high was in the 70’s, it was hot in the sun!

After lunch, we made a pit stop at Walmart for grocery pick up and continued on to our Air B & B house in South Bristol.

The kids were excited to get settled in the house, play some hide and seek and explore the property a bit. 

After getting settled, we piled into the car and went out for a late dinner at Coveside in Christmas Cove, not far from the house.

Between the long day of travel and the quiet nature sounds, we all fell asleep fast and slept solid!

Our second day started slow at the house with coffee and Battleship on the porch. 

Just before 10am, we met up with the Foxx family at the kayak rental shop for a couple hours on the water. 

We started at the shop near Pemaquid Beach and paddled out to Witch Island. Once there, we pulled the boats onshore for a short .8 mile hike around the island. It was beautiful and peaceful. 

Shawn & Logan paddled together, Ryder paddled solo and Brecken and I paddled together. The shore line was beautiful, the water and wind were both pretty calm, and we got to see boats pulling up traps on the harbor. Overall, everyone enjoyed it.

After paddling, we drove over to the Contented Sole near New Harbor and had fish tacos and drinks with a view! 

We filled the afternoon with a long visit at the Pemaquid Lighthouse and then Pemaquid Beach. The rocks at the lighthouse were so unique and the sand at the beach was so incredible soft!

To end the day, we all had dinner at our rental house, had drinks in the backyard and the kids played Uno and Hide and Seek :) 

Solid day outside today! 

Long Beach Date | May 2024

In early May, Mikayla came to watch the boys at our house so I could join Shawn for a work trip in Long Beach, CA.

We both worked Thursday and Friday (and Shawn worked Saturday morning), but it still felt like we had a ton of free time together.

I landed on Thursday around dinner time, so of course we had to hit the beach for some food. I took an Uber from the airport to the hotel and then we hopped on Lime scooters to travel from the hotel to Belmont Pier for dinner at Belmont Brewing. Super cute outdoor dining spot with a great view. 

On Friday, Shawn spent the day at the convention hall and I had breakfast at the hotel (avocado toast with tomatoes and eggs is my current fav!) and then worked outside in a courtyard in the shade for the day. Such a perfect spot to spend the day reviewing drawings. After work, we laced up our skates and headed south 15 miles on the boardwalk to Duke's in Huntington Beach for dinner! Initially we didn't think we'd go to HB, thinking we wanted to try all new places, but it is obviously such a special place for both of us that we ended up making it a 'new' experience by skating there :)

While there were a couple sketchy sections of the route (like along the highway with a small shoulder on a long bridge, and a couple steep bridges), most of the route was along the sand and was so beautiful. Other than my feet going a little numb from the bumpy roadways, I could have kept going once we hit our final destination. But, we gladly took off our skates and walked into Dukes for dinner and drinks on their patio.

I had to have their classic mai tai, they had live music with Polynesian dancers and we had a sunset view from our table. The GM also bought us a round of drinks after he found out we skated there from a couple cities away and that Shawn had worked there years ago :)

Before catching an (expensive) Uber home, we walked Main Street and 5th Street. Main Street is pretty much the same compared to our time living there, but 5th Street has completely transformed (we bought our first surfboards from the quiet 5th Street board shop back in '05). We grabbed a few goodies from HSS Surf Shop, peeked in the windows of our old apartment (creepy, I know), stopped at HB Beer Company and at the boho style Shore Break bar / restaurant. 

On Saturday, after Shawn finished work, we took an Uber to Hermosa Beach. This was a new area for us. We ate at Tower 12 on Hermosa's Main Street and then walked along the boardwalk to Manhattan Beach. We're not usually ones to go for a walk on the boardwalk (typically bike or skate or run), but this let us avoid carrying anything with us and we had a hard time finding one way bike rentals. But, walking was perfect so we could look at all the beautiful beach homes (mansions) along the boardwalk! I would definitely do that again!

After our long walk on the boardwalk, we took an Uber to Dock Wyler beach (in an electric Mustang!) to a city bike rental station. From there, we biked (into the strong wind) to Santa Monica Pier. It was a nice route, but the wind and heavy city bikes made it more of a workout than a leisure ride along the sand. Once we (finally) made it to an open bike docking station in Santa Monica, we grabbed a beer to relax from our efforts at Venice Ale House - right on the edge of the busy Venice Beach area. With all that biking, we decided to take an electric scooter to get to our dinner spot (Blue Plate Tacos). After dinner and a walk along Third Street Promenade, we scootered south and then took an Uber back to our hotel for the night.

Sunday was our last day of our getaway. We carefully planned the weekend to squeeze as much out of it as we could. On this day, we planned to bike to a kayak rental and paddle one of the local harbor waterways. Unfortunately, since high winds were expected, they never opened the rental shop. Instead, we walked along the Belmont beach for a bit, spent some time sitting by the hotel pool, and had a perfect lunch in Long Beach at Solita Tacos & Margaritas before heading to the airport. To cap off the weekend, we paid the guest fee to have Shawn enter the Delta Sky Club Lounge with me and we ate and drank like royalty before flying home :)

Such a fun weekend in one of our favorite areas of the country.

Cabin Date Night

 As a Christmas gift for Shawn this year, I planned a night away at the Elk Lake cabin for us. (Time is a gift!) I had expected us to cross country ski, have a winter bonfire, maybe a snowy hike. But it wasn't the winter we expected.

So, instead - we went up this past Saturday. The boat was in, the sun was out, and it felt like summer in April.

Shawn has been wanting to kayak south of Little Elk Lake for quite some time, so he planned that adventure for Saturday. 

We dropped Logan off at a babysitting class, had Auntie KK come to Maple Grove, and set out on our adventure. We dropped a car off at County Road 15 at a boat launch in the Sand Dunes State Forest. We then drove back up to the cabin to put the kayaks in at the dock and head south.

The kayak on Elk Lake was nice since we were able to paddle so close to the shore. Most lots haven't put in their docks yet.

When we got to the dam on the south side of the lake, we pulled our kayaks out right next to it and put them back in to paddle under the road.

The next section was logistically tough. This was the Battle Brook section. There were a few downed trees and very thick brush to navigate through. We had to pull our kayaks out two times and climb over logs in place another time.

Once we made it through that section (which was short), the river opened up. It was beautiful.

However, the wind was very strong (gusts to 25mph!). It was so strong that it was stronger than the current! If you stopped paddling, you would either blow into the weeds along the river bank or go backwards. 

We made it all 12.9 miles from Little Elk Lake, through the Battle Brook, under County Road 4, down the St. Francis River to the boat launch where we parked the Jeep at County Road 15. Throughout this paddle through the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge, we saw: eagles, sandhill cranes, geese, wood ducks, trumpeter swans, what we think were muskrat (3 of them!) and a couple turtles! That was pretty cool.

While it was definitely Type 2 fun, it was beautiful and nice to check something off Shawn's list together. 

After that excursion, we took the rest of the time at the lake pretty easy :) Our first stop was a visit to Lupulin Brewery in Big Lake (close to the boat launch) for a beer and gyros!

We did a boat cruise in the pontoon around the lake and then sat out on the patio at Ridgewood for wings and drinks. We hit 82 degrees for a high and we soaked up every bit of it.

On Sunday, I woke up early and was able to see the fiery sunrise on the lake and hear the critter chorus that went along with it. That never gets old. Once Shawn was up, we grabbed some coffee and took the pontoon out for another shoreline cruise while the lake was calm. We decided this needs to be a regular routine when we’re up there.

To make the most of our day, we reloaded on coffee and set out for a drive on the Prairie’s Edge Wildlife Loop. There was a nice spot to get out for a small hike, too. This is also in the Sherburne County National Wildlife Refuge.

Our last two stops before heading home were lunch on the Fore Season’s patio (great view, perfect weather) and a stop at Sunken Ship Brewing. 

Such a nice 2-day date. So thankful Mikayla was able to watch the boys for the night!