First Family Vacation to the Beach

We took our first family vacation to Michigan City, Indiana. We stayed in a beach house for 7 days with Grandma Kay and Grandpa Tony (aka Paps). We broke up our drive there with a stop to see Aunt Carrie at Chuck E Cheese in Indianapolis. The boys LOVED playing the games and eating pizza.


Our street dead ended into the beach, we just had to walk through the grass (aka jungle) over a decent size sand dune to get to the beautiful beach. We spent about 4 mornings and one afternoon at the beach and again the boys LOVED it. We built sandcastles and swimming pools, both of which were specialties of Paps. We took walks, played with rocks and chased some sea gulls. Lucas loved swimming in the lake and was getting really good at it by the end of the week. Adam loved the water when it was calm, but wasn't a big fan of the waves on the few days it was rough. The water was crystal clear and there was a sand a bar just off our coast that made the water about 12 - 24 inches deep for almost 100 yards. So the boys were able to play a lot in the water. The air temperature was about 80 and the water temperature was cool, so when there was a breeze the boys got cold in the water. Lucas didn't care at all. He just swam until his lips turned purple and then snuggled with me in a towel until he warmed up. The beach was a big hit with the boys.

Daddy and Paps throwing Lucas

Paps and Lucas swimming

Lucas making sandcastles

Grandma Kay and Adam playing with water

Daddy throwing Adam

Adam building sandcastles

Adam playing with his beach ball

The boys playing in one of their swimming pools

One afternoon we went to pick blueberries. The boys had a great time and ate a bunch of delicious blueberries. Adam ate everyone he picked and didn't put one in his bucket. Lucas covered the bottom of his bucket and then ate them all and started again several times. Daddy even picked enough to make some blueberry wine. Overall we picked almost 2 pounds.

Another afternoon we went to the Washington Park Zoo. The boys loved the zoo and seeing all the animals. Lucas's favorite animals were the otters and Adam loved the snakes.

The boys looking at snakes.

Adam feeding goats

Daddy and the boys watching the otters play

The adults each enjoyed a date night/afternoon of shopping at the outlet mall, gambling at the casino and then dinner alone. The boys enjoyed two yummy trips to Oinks, a local ice cream shop. Our beach house although not perfect served it's purpose wonderfully. The boys traveled well thanks to DVD's and all in all the trip was great. We were very lucky to have Paps and Grandma along to help us try to keep up with these two wild boys. Lucas just kept telling us what a great beach vacation this was and telling us all how much he wanted to come again soon. Grandma Kay took lots of pictures for us (about 350), so I made a slide show with my favorite 100 to share with everyone. Our first family vacation was a huge success and I think Lucas will be happy to know we will be going back!