The Rest of our Beach Trip

I've mentioned before how much I LOVE name your own price on priceline.com and, yet again, they didn't disappoint. We got a GREAT room at a Hampton Inn on the beach for only $90 a night on Memorial Day weekend...you can't beat that!

Enjoying our room

Since Kye no longer sleeps in a crib (I PROMISE a lonnnnng overdue post on transitioning to the big boy bed is coming, I just want to get back on track chronologically first!) he also no longer sleeps in a pack and play when we travel. Waaaaaaay back when we bought Kye's nursery furniture (99% of you don't remember that so you can read about it here) they threw in a free Peapod tent. We thought it was mega cool but literally never used it. Until now. I was researching ideas for places for toddlers to sleep when traveling and it kept popping up! Turns out it's a toddler travel bed!!! I was nervous to use it so we also bought a kid sized air mattress for travel and we've used both. We like the tent the best though b/c it helps block out light and it gives him his own little space. He really loves it and thinks it's super cool (which us making a BIG deal of it totally helped!). We still rig up sheets/blankets around him to help block out the light and of course we bring along his fan for plenty of noise!!!

You may think it's bad...but let's not forget our kid has slept in a shower a time or two when needed!

enjoying his big boy tent

I really enjoyed staying at the Hampton Inn...they have microwaves and fridges in every room (a must when traveling with a toddler) and have awesome breakfast each morning. We took full advantage of it and Kye LOVED it!!! Plus it allowed me to stock up on milk for the rest of the day for him too :)

Kye's favorite thing to do in hotel rooms is to play with the phones. We just unplug it and it provides endless entertainment. Here's a video of him talking away on it!

Another thing he enjoyed about this hotel room was that it was the LAST room on our floor. So every time we went to go to the elevator we had a long walk. Kye enjoyed racing down the hall (here's a video) and it brought back fun memories from my childhood racing with my cousin, Meghan, through the halls when we'd visit Florida. Plus it gave us a little work out too!

After our morning at the beach and pool we relaxed in the room, Kye napped (and so did we!) and we even watched a family movie. We watched Homeward Bound because Zach and I had great memories of it from our childhood...well we won't be doing that again for several years. It had a lot of scary parts in it that Kye was just too young for (for a LONG time you think Sassy, the cat, DIED...ummm we said she was "hiding"). At least we viewed it as a family and didn't let him watch it in the car or something!

We headed out to find dinner and kinda enjoyed that we were on Valdosta time b/c it meant it was only 4:30 Destin time...which meant we had ZERO waits! We found this cute little restaurant on the beach and thought we'd give it a try. My camera was doing that cloudy cold-hotel-room-to-hot-outside thing it does so sorry again for bad quality of the first set of pictures!

LOVED the open windows overlooking the ocean, Kye had a great time watching the kids play!

I wasn't feeling too hungry so I just ordered some hush puppies and they were GOOD!!! I forgot how much I enjoy them :) Zach got a yummy burger and Kye even picked up the bill! What a gentleman :)

We told Kye if he did good all day not throwing any fits (yes,a post is coming up on that too!) then we'd go to get ice cream for dessert. He was an ANGEL all day and we were pretty glad because we wanted that ice cream! My love for Mochi isn't going anywhere, but I've learned that almost every little town we visit has a yogurt type place with MILLIONS of toppings. When will someone open one in Valdosta??? We need one desperately! We got Kye his own little cup (no toppings for him!) and he dug right in, he may look like his Daddy but his love of ice cream is ALL Mommy!

My cup...under a lb this time since I was still in the I'm-not-hungry phase of pregnancy

I didn't even finish the whole thing!

Overall, it was a nice little mini vacation for our family...I DID realize I really need to sit down and type up a "what to pack when we travel" sheet then laminate it and put it up inside a cabinet or something. Pregnancy brain caused me to forget ANY of Kye's pjs and not pack him ANY extra clothes. Poor kid...he was still learning to stay dry and clean all night at that point and of course since I forgot clothes, he had a million accidents. I know once pregnancy brain is gone, Blitzen will be here and then I'll have TWO kids to pack for so I def think the lists are needed!

We also had a great time watching The Office (don't we always?). Friday night after Kye went to bed we watching the FUNNIEST episode EVER. It's Season 5, Episode 13 "Stress Relief." If you haven't seen it, FIND IT. I don't laugh out loud very easily and I was dying. Like laughing so hard I was scared I'd wake up Kye! I've heard the episodes only get funnier so I'm excited to go on another trip soon and watch more!