A Week At the Beach!

Beach house in Destin, FL.

There is something to be said about spending quality time with family. I am blessed to have family that I can say we get along well together. The old adage says, “the family that prays together, stays together..." I would like to add that the family that prays together, purposely puts God in their plans together will intentionally stick together." Psalm 127: 1 reads, "Except the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it..."  Putting and keeping God first in your family makes the difference in the outcome of your family.  

This year, my husband's siblings (all six of them, with spouses, children, and moms) planned a trip to the beach together. As a side note, I must add that we have a very unique story for siblings who have both of the same parents and more-so for siblings who share the same father with 3 different mothers. I will tell you more about that in a different blog. This blog is just about our vacation. I will back track about how we got to this point in another blog.  This year our destination was Destin, FL since it is roughly 5-6 hours from those of us who live in Atlanta. 

We started discussing our family trip at the end of January at a birthday dinner we were celebrating for a niece and nephew. Some of us have traveled together before but usually we all rent our own individual condos or places to stay and meet up and do something’s together. The tricky part this year was we chose to abandon staying in separate family condos to rent one large house near the beach to accommodate all of us. It required compromise and selflessness to have that many adults, children and "cooks in the kitchen." :)  Plus, we planned to do most if not all things together.

 At the end, it turned to be a total of 30 family members packed in one large house for a week. The house had 3 floors, 9 bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms, splash pool and deluxe kitchen and an elevator. –Not a bad deal. J  The location was set about a 2 block walk away from the beach. All seven siblings, spouses, and nieces and nephews except for 1 showed up.  

What an amazing time! It could not have been a better vacation. Due to the creative fore planning of my husband's sisters, a meal plan, schedule of daily activities, rules/regulations of the trip were sent out prior to departure. They even ventured to create a vacation website for the purpose of communication with details like address, arrival time, rental rules, menu plan with lead cooks, bathroom schedule, and activity list. It was like having our own personal cruise director/tour guide!  There was nothing left to chance but laughs. Believe me when you put that many people in one house together whether they grew up together or not, laughs are to be expected. I must admit it was one of the best vacations we have ever had. So much fun!

 The best part was no one had to worry about the details of what we’re going to do each day because it was already taken care of. We could just wake up and check the schedule and show up. We did so much: water sports: jet-skiing, para-sailing, snuba diving, kayaking, boating/fishing and snorkeling, land activities: Whole family devotions, daily scripture postings on the daily activity schedule, mini-golf, go-carting, bumper-boats, laser-tag, teenage club hang-out, bonfire on the beach with roasting marshmallows, beach activities, picture taking, karaoke, scavenger hunts, poolside big screen movies, fireworks on the pier and more. It was a blast! We came back refreshed but also a little tired from not just sleeping away the vacation. 

Watching all the "kids" from ages, three to twenty-five, playing in the soft sand and jumping the waves of the aquamarine water with their aunties and uncles and grandmas in tow was so serene.Viewing my children and their cousins who are roughly in the same age groups give or take a few years, interact was incredible. There is nothing like seeing the bunch of smiling, happy faces. They were completely engaged the entire time. We prayed and ate together for most meals.  All were assigned a role in helping with a meal and only ate out twice. We even completed a 750 piece puzzle of Times Square, NY that my 8-year old niece,Zoe,began and almost finished but she became to busy with beach and water activities to finish, so by the end of the trip a group of us, helped her finish. Way to Go, Team!

With 30 people all under one roof, it seems like a family reunion, when in reality, it was just a great family vacation for us. My husband and I always wanted to make sure that our value of family was instilled in our children. We have established the value that no matter how old they become or busy their lives, family is first. We imparted this value in them from young each year by taking either a vacation or even stay-cation locally.  So when the siblings decided to come together for one big vacation, we jumped on the opportunity to keep building our family culture. It was a first for all of us, but certainly not our last~ 

Destin Family Vacation 2014  with all of the gang! 

I would love to know your thoughts! Please share your super sweet thoughts and comments. Tell me what other topics you would like to more about.