Florida trip 2025- part 1.

We went to Florida and had a wonderful time! We surprised the girls with the trip over Christmas, and the anticipation of it coming was so fun. We actually left the day of Lucy and Ellory's birthday, which was really neat too! We did all of their birthday celebrating early this year, and it was such a treat to head to Florida on their birthday!

This was our first bigger trip as the five of us. We had done several family trips before with sides of the family, and the last three years we have done a bigger experience gift for Christmas of Great Wolf Lodge and Mall of America (and then Great Wolf Lodge again because they loved it), but this was our biggest trip yet as our family and it was great! We saved airline miles for a long time and used those for flights, and it was special to be able to invite my parents to join us too. We found a four bedroom condo, so my youngest sister joined also! We went to Destin, an area of Florida we hadn't been to before, and loved it! All of our restaurants and activities were great and the beach was so nice! Such blue, clear water and white, soft sand! We stayed at Silver Beach Towers and we had a good experience. We loved that they had a hot tub and pool that faced the beach and we had direct beach access.

The first day was a bit chillier and more cloudy, so we spent some time walking around HarborWalk Village in the afternoon and it was fun to see some shops and still be close to the water. We ate at Merlin's Pizza that night and it was delicious! Super good pizza.

Even though it was chillier that day, we of course went to the ocean anyways! We had the girls wear clothes (vs. a swimsuit) because we figured they would be too cold, but they couldn't be stopped and their clothes were pretty wet after! 

My sister, my mom, and I. 

They had seen the ocean once before when they were 4 and 2, and they don't remember that, so this was like their first time seeing the ocean!

They loved all of it- waves, sand, looking for shells, so much fun!

So thankful we could take this trip!