Remember last week when I left you hanging? If you follow along on Instagram, then you’ll know exactly what we were up to, but if not I’ll let you in on a little secret. My family loves the beach. LOVES. And for the last several years, we’ve taken the girls to the beach for at least a couple days during spring break. This year, we just couldn’t work it out with our schedules to take the time off and, boy were they disappointed! The Friday morning before Easter, my mom called me at work and asked me if I thought it would be completely insane to drive down for a day. Umm, no.
For those of you not familiar with Birmingham, we are a little shy of five hours from the Gulf Coast. Driving down for the day is a little ridiculous, but I’m nothing if not ridiculous. I called Josh to make sure he didn’t mind us abandoning him and we quickly formulated a plan to get us there. I was scheduled to work from home that Monday, so I packed my laptop and squeezed in a little extra work over the weekend so that I wouldn’t be short any hours. We swore everyone to secrecy and went on about our Easter weekend.
I packed the girls’ suitcases after they were in bed Saturday night and covertly stuffed everything into the trunk of my car. We laughed because twice on Sunday morning Ella got so upset about not being able to find things that were already in my car. I tried my best to divert her attention, but we all got a great laugh out of it later.
I cannot even tell you how excited I was and what a terrible secret keeper I am. It’s funny because I love to surprise the girls, but it is seriously torture for me. I wanted to tell them first thing on Easter Sunday morning, but I restrained myself. We finished up the festivities at home and spent the afternoon with my parents after lunch. It rained on Easter, so there wasn’t any egg hunting and we just hung out in the barn for most of the day. We planned to leave around 3 in the afternoon, thinking if we made good time we could eat at our favorite restaurant for dinner! At some point, Sophie had a meltdown and was crying about something. This is a very regular occurrence right now, so I honestly have no idea what she was complaining about. I called her over and whispered in her ear, “Do you think it would make you feel better if we went to the beach?” She looked at me confused and and I said, “Right now?” She started beaming and nodding her head. I told her to see if Ella wanted to come and they seriously went nuts. Ella was so emotional over the whole thing that she just sobbed and crawled up into my lap. I’m not kidding you when I say I’m raising beach babies. They thought we had to go home and pack, so they were super surprised when we just strapped them in the backseat of my mom’s car and hit the road. It’s probably one of the best drives down we’ve ever had — they were so giggly and excited that they never even complained.
We made it down just in time for dinner, so we checked into our hotel (we stayed about 25 minutes from the beach because, CHEAP and 24 hours) and headed to dinner. Of course, since it was Spring Break the irresponsible children were out in full force and we got quite the pre-dinner show. There was a police chase and subsequent takedown in the street in front of the restaurant and while I was vying for a better look (to make sure we weren’t in any immediate danger) a nearby police officer practically tackled me to the ground. To say my kids were shocked and freaked out is a major understatement.
We slept in on Monday morning, hit up the outlet mall for a few quick items and packed our cooler for the beach. Our access is free when we come down for the summer, but we happily paid a visitor’s fee to sit on OUR beach. The weather was beautiful and the kids didn’t complain a single time all day. They stuffed their faces with Easter candy, laid in the sun, built sand castles and happily played in the freezing ocean. I ran back to town for takeout for lunch and we even managed to squeeze in our favorite ice cream shop before we were on the road back home.
I’m not going to lie, 24 hours just made me homesick for June, but it was definitely worth it. The girls had such a great day and even though we were all burned to a crisp (#momfail), we decided we would do it again in a heartbeat. Fortunately, the next time we drive south it will be for at least two glorious weeks. Last year, I ended up going home for a few days to work and then driving right back down for another week with my babies. My parents almost always spend the entire month of June in Gulf Shores, so we are known to act a bit irresponsibly with our vacation days.
