First Family Vacation

We decided this was the year for our first family vacation.  This is a big deal to us.  Margo and I love to take trips and before kids we traveled a lot and went to a lot of places.  We consider ourselves to be really good vacationers.  But vacationing with kids is a whole new ballgame.  Instead of doing whatever we want, whenever we want, our trips will revolve around the girls and their schedule.  So, no more fancy restaurants or art museums (at least until they get older).
We thought a beach trip would be a good vacation for a couple of toddlers.  We asked a bunch of people we know who go to the beach a lot and finally settled on Navarre Beach in Florida. It is kind of a long drive which we were a little worried about with the girls, so we decided to split up into two days. But the girls did amazing with being in the car for many hours. We did not have to stop a ton of times and there were minimal breakdowns.  Those of you who know us, know that we try to keep tv watching to minimum (or none at all) and we especially don't want our girls to have to watch tv every time we are in the car or take portable dvd players/smart phones everywhere we go to entertain our girls. We have a dvd player in our car but have never used it but thought we might have to on this trip. Amazingly, we did not ever have to use it, the girls were happy playing with toys, books, etc. We were very impressed with how well they did.
Navarre Beach is a lot less crowded and crazy than the more popular places like Pensacola or Destin and it is a lot cheaper.  We are staying at a condo that is really nice and it is not a huge complex which is nice. It has a pool and is right on the beach.  We have a nice balcony that looks right over the ocean.  Since getting here we have spent lots of time on the beach, playing in the sand and water.  The girls have never been in a pool or tried to swim or anything like that.  Esther knows all about swimming though and has seen people swimming on tv and stuff and was super excited to get to swim even though she had no idea how to do it.  When we first went to the beach she saw some people out in the water and she said "I'm going to swim daddy" and took off towards the water about to jump in, so I had to grab her really fast.  She did not understand that it was not that easy.  After taking her out in the water a little, she decided she was not such a big fan.  She does like getting out in the water but only about waist deep.  We tried them in the pool also and they liked it ok but not great.  They would much rather just play in the sand.  I think we need to start Esther on swim lessons soon.  Today we went to the National Seashore which is just down the road and walked around some.  It is really nice there, the sand is so soft, you sink down in it like snow.  We had a good dinner tonight at a seafood place and had some great seafood, including some raw oysters for me.  Another thing that makes us proud parents and how we have raised our girls is they will eat just about anything. We can take them anyplace and give them just about any kind of food and they will eat it.  We don't have to find a place with chicken nuggets and french fries for them.
I think doing a beach trip for our first family vacation was a great decision.  It is perfect for two toddlers.  And it is nice having a condo to have a place to cook and a place for them to sleep and nap easily.  We will keep our fingers crossed that it keeps going as well as it has so far.