Yesterday’s template (which may be similar to today’s):
7 AM: Kids up (because G cannot seem to sleep much later, sadly!)
Slow breakfast / hang out
9 AM: Beach
11 AM: Pool
12:30 PM: Showers & Lunch (I made turkey/brie sandwiches with chips, carrots + plums)
1:30 PM: Screens / books / etc
5:30 PM: Go outside because everyone is going stir crazy (we found tennis courts which we are going to attempt to use later)
6:30 PM: Dinner – we did takeout from Wicked Bao (Josh and I have been before + love this place!)
7:30 PM: Watch Olympics / etc
9:30 PM: Put kids to bed (C fell asleep on couch)
G still makes a lot of messes and has to be more entertained/monitored than the other 2, but it’s still FAR better than 2019. I feel like we are close to the threshold of actually having relaxing vacations.
(But not QUITE there. Lol.)
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That sounds perfect! The 2 vacations we’ve taken with Paul have been to the Gulf Coast of Florida and we’ve stayed in an airbnb on the beach. It’s so nice to be able to just walk outside and enjoy the ocean or the pool. I look forward to taking our boys back there – maybe next winter (fingers crossed there is a vaccine for kids by then).
We have to be out the door by around 6:50 on week days so our kids are up between 6-6:30 every day. I wish we had a set-up where they would sleep later but I know that won’t be the case until they are in school and even then they probably will still be up early depending on the start time for school… but I am just thrilled that both are sleeping through the night most nights! We got the baby to STTN this past month after a little sleep training. Big brother Pablo didn’t STTN until a year as he had ear infections that resulted in tubes at 9 months and then it took 3 months to wean him off night feeds… So I can’t complain about their wake times right now. But most of our friends w/ older kids tell us that it will get better and some day we will be dragging them out of bed. 😉
Enjoy the remainder of your time away! I’m glad it’s been mostly/somewhat relaxing!!
Love that you all are having a great time. Vacation hack from the deep dive podcast was black (home depot contractor like) garbage bags taped on the windows where the kiddos sleep. Use painters tape for no damage to the air B & B.
I know you are on the east coast all the time but this might help if you the sun or light is coming in to wake up G.
Also 1000% recommend the Deep Dive with June Diane and Jessica St Claire if you need a total escape and hacks like this 🙂 I laugh so much during each episode.
Black contractor bags now have their own spot on my vacation checklist :). They are amazing! We used them last year at the Outer Banks in our rental and now won’t travel without them. They make a huge difference in kids sleeping in for us (though I know not true for everyone).
This is similar to the template we will be employing in the outer banks next week. We sometime start screen time a bit later or end it earlier to allow for some additional exploration…
Sounds a lot like our beach vacation last month. Lazy mornings, picnic lunches on the beach (we stuck the sandwiches in a big bag in the cooler, which worked out great), and out to dinner. We just have a teenager, so forced her to watch some of our favorite older movies in the evenings, which she actually ended up enjoying! DH and DD got pretty sunburnt the first couple of days, so we also took a couple of days off mid-week to do other things in town besides the beach.
This is a very nice vacation template!
My three kids are just slightly older than yours (10, 8, newly 5) and I can confirm that this summer has been the first where our holiday was genuinely relaxing and fun, as well as memorable for everyone! Though they do still fight in the car…
Can totally see that! This time around is much more relaxing and fun than 2 years ago, and I can imagine in 2 more it will be very smooth sailing!
Love this! Do you try to get G to nap during a vacation? I’m heading to San Diego this weekend with my 3 & 5 year olds and my 3 yr old really needs a nap but always refuses on trips. We do the blackout curtains and everything but he just won’t sleep :/ It makes me more miserable sometimes to try to get him to nap so I’m thinking this weekend I’ll just skip it and do some quiet screentime and then an early-ish bedtime (we are getting a babysitter from the hotel) while the adults go out to eat.
We typically avoid nap for her – totally messes up her ability to go to bed even at 9-9:30p!
She turns 4 in December and I’m planning to beg her teachers to stop giving her a school nap too.
We had a similar issue with my 4 year old. Naps, esp school naps, were messing with her bedtime and we were starting to resent each other every night. It took a lot of convincing with the school to allow her to drop the nap.
Funny we won vacation too although your beach looks way better! That’s a lot of sand! We have been working around rain more than usual so haven’t really had a routine. My kids are slightly more independent but away from home and TOYS!!!! They can be pretty clingy and wild sometimes. I feel like I’m always telling some one not to run! Oh well.
Amelia Island does have really wide (and uncrowded) beaches. Beachwise I prefer it to Sanibel/Captiva (though this area has other charms and is much closer) or S Florida.
We took two trips earlier this year – a weekend trip to visit friends in upstate NY and a weeklong trip with my husband’s immediate family – and both were such a disaster with our two year old that my husband came home and said he didn’t want to go on our week long trip to Cape Cod this September. We planned the trip around my high school friend’s wedding, so I still wanted to go. My husband said it would be more relaxing for him to solo parent for a week while sending her to daycare than to go on the trip. So I’ve invited my best girlfriends from law school to come with me instead. The anticipation of my first legitimate vacation in years is making me both squeal inside and get a little emotionally teary eyed. I can’t wait.
FULLY get your husband’s perspective 🙂 And this works for you too! Sounds amazing.
In 2019 I was fully fine with giving up family travel for ~2 years. I didn’t expect a pandemic to make my decision even easier . . .