Beach Week 2018

Disclaimer: In this post I do mention a few specific items and provide links for them. None of these are sponsored and I was given no compensation for mentioning or linking them. They are all just items that I loved having on our trip and wanted to pass along!

Last week our little family traveled out to Virginia to spend the week at Sandbridge Beach with Justin’s side of the family (his parents, siblings, nephew, nieces). We managed to find a beach house rental where we could all stay together and it was SO nice to get a ton of quality time with each other.  My heart is so full from all the memories made! I buried our three-year-old niece in the sand into the shape of a mermaid. Justin helped our five-year-old nephew learn how to dive into the pool. LJ got to experience the ocean for the first time. I stayed up until midnight just chatting with my sister-in-law about all things big and little in our lives. The grandparents got a ton of baby snuggles with LJ and his 6-month-old cousin. We shared meals, we played games, we talked and laughed and soaked up every minute. It was such a fantastic week!

Instead of recapping the whole trip, I’ve decided to just share my favorite memory from the week, which happened on the last day that we were all together. Our rental was only a two minute walk to the ocean and we decided to take one last trip to the beach before my brother-in-law’s family had to leave. We didn’t load ourselves down with beach gear, but instead just threw on our suits, grabbed a few towels and some sunscreen, and headed out. We were only on the beach for about 45 minutes, but it was the most fun 45 minutes of the whole trip.

The babies lounged on the towel together and watched Justin and his brother take the big kids to jump waves in the ocean. My niece requested to be buried in the sand again. My nephew and I “raced” away from the incoming waves, laughing the whole time. At one point the entire family ended up in the ocean holding hands as the waves crashed onto our feet. I loved every second! It was such a good reminder that we don’t need a lot of “stuff” to have fun and make great memories. No one brought books to read or sand toys to play with. We just had the sand, the surf, and each other – and that’s all we needed to have the most pure, perfect, magical beach memory.

That being said, we did have a lot of other good memories. I hope you enjoy a few photos of the highlights!

My heart can’t even handle the cuteness of LJ in his little floating flamingo, whom we lovingly named Fiona. Our exact one is no longer available but a similar one can be found here. It was such a nice thing to have so we didn’t always have to hold him in the pool, and it allowed him to kick his feet in the water which was so sweet!

As you can see from the picture above from another beach day, we did not always pack light. Ha! This was our typical beach set-up with LJ. My sister-in-law had the brilliant idea to get an inflatable bathtub for the babies to enjoy a little ocean water while staying in the shade. It worked so well!

The sun shelter was an Aldi Find (anyone else obsessed with Aldi?) earlier this summer. You can find similar styles here and here.

The inflatable bathtub was also a huge help at the pool! You can find this exact tub here. Also, I have all the heart eyes for LJ’s sweet little striped hat. He does have a brimmed sun hat with a chin strap but he is constantly trying to pull it off his head. For some reason, he tolerates baseball hats much better so this is what we used most often. His hat can be found here.

We are already talking about next year’s beach trip and I can’t wait to see what fun we’ll have! Until then, I’ll just bask in all the sweet memories we made this year. 🙂

Where is your favorite beach to visit?