New Smyrna Beach Trip 2016

We enjoyed 5 days away in sunny New Symrna Beach, Florida (Atlantic side) with my family right before Thanksgiving.  I have been going to New Syrmrna Beach, FL for almost 20 years.  My grandparents bought a bunch of timeshares back in the 90’s!

My kids LOVE the beach.  Unfortunately our 6:45pm flight was delayed 2.5 hours meaning we didn’t leave Iowa until nearly 9:30pm – way after EVERYONE’s bedtime!  The big kids were great travelers and the little one survived (but there were lots of tears!).

The kids enjoyed watching the planes come and go as we waited for our plane to come.

Finally on board and Lucy did not sleep at all…we arrived to the beach at about 2am!

We slept in and then met my grandparents by the pool for doughnuts and coffee (lots of coffee).  The kids slept in and then promptly put their swimsuits on to swim!  My parents and cousin Madelynne rolled in shortly after.

Madelynne loves to care for my kids – I actually got to relax on vacation with so much help!

We did a whole lot of swimming in the pool – both big kids can swim independently now!  It’s a game changer, we watch them and get in with them but they know how to swim!

Lucy thought she could swim and has no fear of the water…that stinker.  She loved it!

We ate out a lot and had a whole lot of seafood.  We even tried alligator…the littlest one was the biggest fan.  The rest of us, not so much.

Between swimming and eating, we hung out on the beach.  We walked, we looked for shells, we boogie-boarded.  We jumped in the waves.  We built sand castles.  We rode on a golf-cart and vespas. Pretty much – we did everything you could do on the beach…including sit and enjoy the view!

My grandparents at 86 years young! We love them so much!

Just 2 girls on the beach…we love, love, love the beach!

While we were there, they were having “Kite Fest” and giving away kites to kids.  We all enjoyed flying kites on the beach.  They had some really cool, fancy kites all anchored down to view as well.  We walked by them several times to get to our favorite restaurant on the water – Breakers.  If you go to NSB, check out the pink restaurant on the beach.  They have the best burgers, shrimp and margaritas – yum!

We also played a lot of football.  We even had our annual Turkey Bowl – the originals (my mom, dad and I) against the Newbies (Scott, Solon, Vera and Madelynne).  It was a hard fought battle, not one of us gives in easily.  There may have been a few injuries but the Newbies took home the victory 5-4. It’s a favorite tradition and always full of laughs.

Lucy fell in love with the beach…

…and everyone worked hard on the sand castles.

We like to big deep holes too…not just any old moat will do!

We played bing pool-side one afternoon!  I won!

One morning it was a little windy and chilly so we rented a golf cart for 8 and a vespa and took turns riding down the beach.  You can drive on the beach there.  Solon was so excited to “ride a motorcycle”.  Someday he can tell people his mom took him on his first ride ;)!

Vespa partners for life…

No vacation would be complete without ice cream!  We love ice cream…

We also snapped a few thousand Christmas Card photos.  We got a few…

…but most of the time, someone wasn’t too interested in cooperating!

Just like that our 5 days of relaxation in the sun and surf came to an end and we boarded a plane to enjoy Thanksgiving in Iowa with Scott’s side of the family.  The upside was the kids were excited to see their cousins so we weren’t AS sad to say good-bye to the ocean.

We stayed here and ate at JB’s Fish Camp and Breaker’s Beach Bar and had Ice Cream here.  New Symrna Beach has a great little downtown area – Flagler Ave!