Our Paradise

The middle and end of August brought us our  yearly trip to Anna Maria Island, off the coast of Tampa.  This is the vacation we look forward to all.year.long, as it's just 7 days of whatever we want to do- pool, beach, sleep, eat ice cream, eat donuts, just be together with no agenda.  This year didn't disappoint!  We tried out a new house that is pet friendly- when we booked it last year, we didn't know if Pito would still be around, and/or if we would have anyone to keep the dogs, so it was safer to choose a pet friendly home.  I had my eye on this particular rental agency, as we had seen this row of homes being built during our last few vacations there.  It's called Lizzie Lu's, and is run by a young husband and wife team!  They have three kids, a fourth on the way, and their oldest is in first grade.  Because it's their business, and not just a rental agency renting out a random house, the attention to detail was awesome.
For example, we ended up getting to leave Diego with Papa (thank you!!!), but had paid the pet fee in advance.  I emailed them on the way to AMI, and he got back to be within 30 minutes and the fee was refunded within 5 minutes after that.  We had one issue with the house, and he came by within 30 minutes of me emailing him.  There were no keys to mess with, just a keypad on the house with a code, so we could come and go without worry!  The house was 2 houses from the beach, and had ocean views from the balconies on the second floor.  It was really amazing, and we had another great week making memories as a family.
I'll do more of an overview (though I know I tend to be wordy), since I am so far behind, but our days basically went like this: wake up, go get donuts for breakfast, pack up and head to the beach, eat lunch on the beach (after I made the 3 second round trip back to the house to make sandwiches), go straight to the pool after the beach (while Hope took a nap), and then either relax the rest of the afternoon, or go mini golfing, and one day I went to the shops.  We rented a paddle board , and for the first time the big kids got on.  Asher LOVED it, Hannah did not.  Hannah is already more brave in the ocean than her brother, general swimming wise (she loves to float in it) but on Tuesday Asher discovered how awesome the Gulf is, and we couldn't get him out of it!  So, so awesome and amazing to see them overcome fears.
They swam like fish in the pool, and Hope did awesome as well, though we did push her and she missed some naps.  I made videos of each day, so if you want to, you can check those out when I post them, and I will post the normal pictures here!
So here is Saturday (arrival day), and Sunday (we hung out with my sorority sister and her family, who live in Tampa.  They came out for a few hours to the house and we swam and grilled lunch on the grill.)

Thank you Lord for the van!  SO.MUCH.STUFF.  the only thing I over packed was my clothes.  Everything else was spot on!

Thank you Papa for keeping Diego!!!

They wore headphones for about an hour!  It was bliss :).

We have arrived!!

Our house is the pinky/orange one, and you can see the beach access point! Lucky ducks we were!

Sunday!  Hannah was up at her usual 6am wakup call, so I snuck her out to the beach to enjoy the sunrise, if we looked backwards :).  Donuts and then some Lego fun while we waited for our friends to arrive.

I don't always advocate standing on the coffee table, but they were trying to see how high they could get the tower, and naturally, I didn't think they should do it.  :)

Fave spot in the corner, much like at home :)

It was drizzly a lot at sunset, and it happened right after we would get the kids down for bed.  I'd put Hope down and then run out in time to catch the really awesome part, or we'd just watch from the deck!