It’s finally here, the day you all (or at least my mom, MIL, and SIL) have been waiting for . . . my post all about our trip to Marco Island!
This was our first “major” vacation with the girls. We rented a house for SEVEN nights! We’ve never been away that long! It was a LOT of work for me to pack us up for a week at the beach because we’ve never had a beach vacation before. Needless to say, I learned a lot and will do better (i.e. bring less stuff) next time 🙂
Funnily enough, I don’t have as many pictures as you might expect from a seven day vacation. I REALLY enjoyed not having my phone with me all the time. I can’t tell you how many times I asked if anyone had seen my phone!
It was a great time to leave for vacation, because here was the weather as we were heading out:
Ugh, no thank you! I had originally booked a late morning flight, but Delta decided to move our departure time to 7am! We spent the night at my parents since they live close to the airport, and my dad was kind enough to drive us at 4:45am! There was a significant lack of sleep going on, but we were all so excited!
We landed, got our rental car, and headed straight to a waterfront restaurant for lunch and smoothies. You guys, it was HOT AND HUMID! There was no shade at the restaurant so we had to go back to the car for sunscreen.
After lunch we went to our house, and this was the girls about five minutes after walking in the door! I posted some pictures of the house in this post here, or you can check out all the pictures on the VRBO website. The house was every bit as amazing as it looks in the photos. It was in pristine condition and had everything we needed!
Oh Hey! Did I mention the Heinbuchs came with us?!
After dinner on our first night we walked down to the beach so the girls could see it for the first time. Spoiler Alert: they loved it!
We heard that Marco Island has an amazing Farmer’s Market so we checked it out the next morning, and it did not disappoint. Our bodies had not yet adjusted to the heat and humidity, and we were sweaty!
We went back and cooled off in the pool . . .
. . . and then spent the rest of the day at the beach!
This guy is living the life!
That night we walked to get ice cream . . .
. . . and check out a souvenir shop. I was looking to get the girls a t-shirt or something, but Emily had her heart set on this giant mermaid. You guys, she played with that thing SO MUCH . . . it kept her busy for days, right up until the tail fell off in the pool and then Lucy threw the body across the water and accidentally hit Ryan in the forehead causing him to bleed. All for $10, folks!
The girls’ room had a TV in it, and they got a kick out of watching TV in bed!
Homemade Banana Coladas!
On this day we checked out Tiger Tail Beach, which is the other public beach on Marco Island. This picture was taken when we first arrived. See those people in the water way out there? We headed that way and crossed a lagoon that was about shoulder deep on the girls and waist deep on us. The guys had our bags held above their heads, and it was quite comical. I tried not to think about what might be in the water with us.
Once we got to the other side of the lagoon, there was a beautiful beach with big waves and lots of good shells.
We found a good spot for our things! 😉
The girls had a great time searching for shells.
It was a little overcast that day, but we still covered up because we all got a little sunburned on the first day, despite constant application of sunscreen.
I have no clue what day this was, but we rented a speedboat to get a tour of the island, see dolphins, and go shelling.
It was fun to see all the amazing beach houses from the ocean side.
I wish I knew how to upload videos, because we had the most amazing experience watching dolphins surf behind our boat. They were SO close and playful, and it was super cool. Here’s a screenshot I took from a video of one of our calmer dolphin encounters.
We spent about 45 minutes on a beautiful lagoon gathering shells, but we all left our phones on the boat. This was Captain Brandon, our guide, and he was excellent! How cute are the girls’ shell bags? They worked perfectly, held a ton, and I love that I can throw them in the washer to clean them up.
We were all hungry after our boat tour, so we went to a waterfront restaurant in Naples for lunch.
And that was the first half of our trip. If you like pirates and sunsets on the beach, then come on back Monday morning to read about the last part of our trip!
Have a great weekend, our weather is supposed to be beautiful!
XOXO
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