#if I had a nickel for every time I got chills during this book. i could prolly buy a half dozen ears of corn from my produce stand

[brightnessrandom]

Just finished listening to The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds!

I've always adored the Legion series, and this latest installment did not disappoint. The story was clever and fast paced, and, as ever, Stephen and his aspects were a delight. It was wonderful to dive into a new mystery and push the boundaries of possibility.

This was a very emotional finale to the series, and I got very invested in the story very quickly. As sad as I am that we won't be seeing more of Stephen, I felt this was an excellent way to tie off his story.

Thank you Brandon Sanderson for introducing me to this wacky world and its lovable characters! They've captured my imagination and stolen my heart.

[cityofimagines]

Fluff Alphabet - Will Poulter

Request: Fluff alphabet with Will?

A/N: absolute fluff overload its midnight & im eMO

A = Attractive (What do they find attractive about the other?)

Will loves your smile. He loves the way your eyes light up, and your forehead crinkles that you get so insecure about but he just loves seeing you happy. He loves being the reason for your smile and he just thinks its the most beautiful part of you. He’s happy when you’re happy.

B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?)

I think Will is definitely dad material. I can totally see him literally being the best dad and no matter if he had a daughter or a son he would spoil the HECK outta them.

C = Cuddle (How do they cuddle?)

Have you seen this man? He’s 6′3 so obviously he’s the big spoon. He’d love to either be in bed or on the couch just completely wrapping himself around you. He’d want his arms to feel like home for you; just the safest place on earth where there’s no expectations, just pure love flowing in between you both. He’d always have a soft hand just slowly trailing up and down your body while he continuously pulls you closer every few minutes.

D = Dates (What are dates with them like?)

Spontaneous. Will’s whole life is kind of spontaneous, so that definitely translates into your dating life. You both do a lot of public things together like award shows, red carpets, premieres and sporting events, but Will being Will doesn’t really categorize those as dates. Your dates are lowkey, eating out at a nice restaurant, or honestly just having a netflix night at home.

E = Everything (You are my ____ (e.g. my life, my world…))

Love. This is Will’s number one pet name for you. It perfectly encapsulates what he feels for you, and that’s true genuine love.

F = Feelings (When did they know they were in love?)

He had a rough, overwhelming day of filming and he wasn’t feeling good at all when he got home. However when he got back to your place, you had dinner all ready, and you just hugged and comforted him for the rest of the night. He knew after that night that he was in love with you. He fell in love with the way you made him feel.

G = Gentle (Are they gentle? If so, how?) 

Will truly is the definition of a gentle giant. He is always so soft with you when you’re in that mood. He’ll wake you up with quick kisses all over your face, and gentle hands trailing up and down the sides of your body. Other times, there’s just lots of hugs and hand holding.

H = Hands (How do they like to hold hands?)

Will completely intertwines his hands in yours every time you go out somewhere. He’s so proud to call you his, and he wants the whole world to know you’re together so he’ll let them know with some simple hand holding.

I = Impression (What was their first impression?)

Will was absolutely mesmerized by you when you first met. You met through mutual friends at a movie premiere.  He was lost in your beauty, but also just the way you spoke. He knew instantly that you were going to be someone special in his life. 

J = Jealousy (Do they get jealous?)

Will trusts you immensely, so he doesn’t get jealous often, but even when he does get jealous he’ll show it subtly. At the club if some guy got too close to you, he would just walk over and start talking to you while completely ignoring the guy. His lowkey dom nature would come out if any guy who had a little too much to drink decided to try anything though. He’d start shouting a bit and pushing the guy around until he got the message. Another instance where he would get jealous is if you were famous and he saw you with another actor as your love interest in the movie/show/whatever you were in. During the premiere he would just simply hold your hand a little tighter and give you small kisses on your cheek during those scenes. When he did this, you always knew he was a tad jealous. 

K = Kiss (How do they kiss? Who initiated the first kiss?)

Will initiated the first kiss. One day he just couldn’t resist anymore. He grabbed your face and pulled you in for a sensual, meaningful moment. Your first kiss was tender and slow, but as your relationship grew, your kisses became needier and more passionate. He tries to convey all the love he has for you through his kisses.

L = Love (Who says ‘I love you’ first?)

Once again, Will said it first, but you were not long to follow. The first time he said it, after about 3 months of you dating, you immediately said it back because it was exactly how you felt.

M = Memory (What’s their favorite memory together?)

Your first date. A day that’s forever burned in his mind. It was the first time you both genuinely had time alone together, and he started falling for you right away.

N = Nickel (Do they spoil? Do they buy the person they love everything?)

100%. He can’t help it. You could make the slightest comment about a dress saying “that’s cute” and next thing you know he would be pulling you over to the cash register and giving the cashier his card. He does anything and everything to make you happy, even though you insist on him not spending any money on you.

O = Orange (What color reminds them of their other half?)

Purple. It was the color of the flowers on the dress you wore on your first real date. He has that outfit engrained in the back of his mind. He also loves to send you purple flowers because of it every so often.

P = Pet names (What pet names do they use?)

Will’s a simple guy. Love, my darling, angel, and the occasional babe are his most used pet names for you. 

Q = Quaint (What is their favorite non-modern thing?)

Will has a lot. But mainly since he’s not super big on technology, he loves a good book, and a good game of soccer (football in his language) outside. 

R = Rainy Day (What do they like to do on a rainy day?)

Rainy days are usually spent in your bed cuddling, whispering sweet nothings, and eating junk food. He loves a good chill day after long weeks of filming crazy movies, and rainy days are the perfect excuse to do just that.

S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/others up?)

Will has a lot of ways to cheer himself up. He’s super big on keeping his mental health in check. He loves to meditate, read, listen to music, and honestly just talk to you. You’re the sunshine of his life, and seeing you smile makes him smile. He’ll cheer you up by doing sort of the same thing. He’ll let you vent to him as long as you need to, or if you don’t want to talk he could stand there with you in his embrace for hours if need be. 

T = Talking (What do they like to talk about?)

Everything. Life, work, upcoming movies, past movies, feelings, family, your relationship, news, charity work, etc. Will is so outspoken and articulate. He loves to have deep, meaningful conversations with you about anything and everything.

U = Unencumbered (What helps them relax?)

This is kind of mentioned above, but definitely meditation, reading, and having long talks with you, especially at night before bed to help stop his mind from racing.

V = Vaunt (What do they like to show off? What are they proud of?)

Anyone who knows Will knows that his sense of style is pretty dope. At events, he loves to subtly show off a new outfit and of course the sneakers he has to go with the outfit. 

W = Wedding (When, how, where do they propose?)

Will would probably take a little while to propose to you. I feel like he’s not one to rush things at all, especially with his unpredictable career, but he would also just need to make sure that it’s absolutely the right decision for him at the time. He knows for a fact that he loves you, but he would totally overthink the proposal and hold off until he knows that it’s the right time and everything will go smoothly. It would be the biggest regret of his life if his proposal ever got messed up.

X = Xylophone (What’s their song?)

Knowing him, anything by Tame Impala.

Y = Yes (Do they ever think of getting married/proposing?)

Yes! Will absolutely wants to get married and have a family one day. He’s a big family man to begin with, and starting one of his own has been of dream of his for a long time.

Z = Zebra (If they wanted a pet, what would they get?)

I can definitely see Will as a dog person. He’d love to play outside with it, and seeing you with a dog would seriously make him the happiness. Just imagine the cuteness overload.

[endlessarchite]

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet

Since our daughter started elementary school a few years ago, spring break has become an increasingly precious opportunity to get away, clock some quality family time, and soak in some long-overdue warm weather. Last year’s spring break vacation to Cape Canaveral, Florida checked all of the right boxes and we were tempted to just repeat that trip again this year. But we pushed ourselves to see if we could make this year’s getaway even better and explore a new part of Florida while we were at it – and we are SO GLAD WE DID. So for anyone else looking for a great family vacation spot or, like us, if you’re just ready to start dreaming about next year’s spring break – here’s a quick recap of our family’s trip to South Florida.

Where We Went

Our #1 priority for the trip was “guaranteed beach weather,” and going to South Florida was the most convenient destination that could guarantee us hot temperatures in early April. We love a good road trip, but we wasted four days driving to Florida and back last year… so we decided to give flying a go this year (a first for us with both kids + the dog). A couple of airlines fly direct to Fort Lauderdale from our airport here in Richmond, VA, and we remembered Fort Lauderdale very fondly from our first book tour, so we figured anything within a 30-minute drive of that airport would be perfect. We actually ended up in a small area north of Fort Lauderdale called Pompano Beach and spent most of our time in nearby towns like Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Lighthouse Point (seen below), and Deerfield Beach, so we never actually stepped foot in Fort Lauderdale proper.

We haven’t flown as a family since our 2012 trip to Hawaii when our daughter was nearly 2 years old. Our hellish red-eye flight back to Virginia (there was lots of crying and zero sleeping) planted a deep-seeded fear of flying with children for several years, but now that she’s almost 8 and our son is 4, it felt like a 2-hour direct flight to Florida would be an easy way to dip our toes back into the family flight waters.

The flight went even better than expected. We flew Spirit Airlines (we’re infamously cheap travelers) and even though they nickel-and-dime you for everything from carry-on bags to in-flight water, it ended up being noticeably less expensive than our next best option, JetBlue. We were even able to bring Burger (our chihuahua) with us without any trouble. He flew to Alaska for our honeymoon, so he has proven himself to be a travel champ (yes, we brought our dog on our honeymoon, and yes we know how that sounds). See him there chilling at Sherry’s feet while she sports what she calls her “nervous travel face”?

A rental car was also a must on our list, so we got a minivan to ensure we’d have enough room for luggage, car seats, and beach gear. We brought car seats with us (we weren’t guaranteed that the rental place would have them since we were arriving really late at night) and thankfully Spirit will check car seats and strollers for free. We talked a little bit more about juggling the dog, the dog crate, car seats, bags, and kids at an airport in podcast episode #92 if you’re curious how that went…

Where We Stayed: A Private Rental

Last year’s trip taught us the wonders of renting a house for spring break. Even though we could all pile into a hotel room, we’ve never regretted at least considering the option of not sharing walls with other vacationers (especially when we’ve got kids and a dog with us). Heck, sometimes a beach rental for the week actually breaks down to being cheaper than a hotel when you do the math to figure out the per-night cost. Last year our rental in Cape Canaveral was 1 of 3 units in a building, so we did have people above us and we all shared a communal pool. It ended up not being a problem (the other renters didn’t use the pool very much, so we had it mostly to ourselves) but this year we looked around online for a detached home with its own pool that was still within our budget, and thankfully we found this one.

We searched across Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway for pet-friendly rentals with a pool located within 30 minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport. We found this gem in Pompano Beach on HomeAway and we could not recommend it more highly. It. Was. Awesome. Not only did the kids love having the entire pool to splash around in, but Burger LOVED having free reign of the yard (last year he had to share a fenced area with another dog, and let’s just say they quickly became frenemies).

The interior furnishings are pretty much what you’d expect from a vacation rental (nothing that felt fancy or precious – which is AWESOME when you’re traveling with kids) and the beach wasn’t really within easy walking distance like the listing says, but the pool was PERFECT and the house and neighborhood were pleasantly very quiet and private. It just took us a few minutes to drive down to the beach and we always found parking (which was nice and cheap), so we really ended up loving everything about it.

The house was located in a small residential neighborhood on Terra Mar Island, a little island in the Intracoastal Waterway. This little bit of separation from the main thoroughfare helped it feel like a secluded and charming suburb – unlike all of the high-rise hotels and condos along the oceanfront. It felt nestled, private, and un-trafficed… even though it was close to everything.

The house itself was surrounded by tall thick foliage on all sides – making it feel like you had the whole island to yourself. We skipped the beach entirely for a couple of days because we were having so much fun just hanging out by the pool. And yes, Sherry has never been more convinced that we need a pool at our own house than after this vacation. #helpme

For any other families who might rent this place: they warned me ahead of time that they didn’t provide beach or pool toys (just chairs, towels, and a beach cart). We certainly weren’t going to bring buckets and shovels on the plane, so we planned to buy them at a dollar store once we got down there… but a previous renter had left a couple for us – along with a pool float and ball. We also picked up some beach toys and pool noodles at the CVS just down the street, all of which we left for future renters – so here’s hoping the cycle continues.

What We Did: Beach, Pool, And Eat

We are very chill vacationers and this spot was perfect for that. I know some families love to cram in tons of new activities and sightseeing on vacations, but our goal for this trip was just to unwind and be together, so we consciously avoided the pull to overschedule ourselves. Our kids love spending hours playing in the sand and making up games at the pool, so that’s pretty much all we did – breaking to eat lunch or dinner as needed (we had all of our breakfasts at the house, which was a nice way to save a little money).

The beach we drove to was at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea because it was close (about 5 minutes away) and super charming (see below!). Parking was extremely easy and affordable, and there were some restaurants and shops we could walk to from the beach. The beach always had people on it, but by no stretch would I call it crowded. We always got a spot that felt like it was ours and the kids could build in the sand and run in and out of the water without worrying they were splashing sand on other people and stuff like that. The water was the perfect temperature and “temperament” for us all to play in (read: not too rough, but enough waves to keep things interesting).

I’m sorry not to have more exciting recommendations for what to do, but our typical spring break agenda is usually: beach, pool, eat, nap, repeat. We did venture down to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk one day because it promised some new scenery, but a thunderstorm rolled in right as we arrived so we were rained out of actually enjoying it. The good news is  that by the time we drove home, it was done raining and the kids jumped right back into… you guessed it… the pool.

Where We Ate: Good Food With Good Views

I mentioned that we ate breakfast at home each morning, but we ate out for pretty much every other meal. You guys gave us some FANTASTIC recommendations on Instagram, which we now want to pay forward to anyone else who might be reading this and planning a trip, so thank you for helping to make our trip better than Yelp ever could have. Our first dinner was at a place in Pompano Beach called Beach House because, well, how could we not?

There was a little bit of a wait on a Tuesday night, but we just hung out on the beach until our table was ready. Whoever designed the restaurant outdid themselves (the woven lanterns swayed in the ocean breezes that blew through since the entire restaurant was open-air) and it was very kid friendly. We’re not really food critics, but I’ll say that we both enjoyed our meals a lot! I had ceviche and Sherry had some sort of “life-changing salad” that she couldn’t stop talking about for the rest of the trip.

The next night we tried a restaurant called Cap’s Place in nearby Lighthouse Point, which had been recommended to us because you have to take a (free) boat to get there! You park at this small dock in a town called Lighthouse Point, and this little watercraft picks you up and shuttles you about five minutes across a lake to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself has a really cool backstory: it was built on top of a beached barge and got its start nearly 100 years ago as a rum-running club and casino during the prohibition. They showed us a list of the famous people who’ve eaten there over the years, ranging from FDR to Paris Hilton, so the whole experience was quirky and super memorable. The building was dark and tough to photograph, and while the meal wasn’t our favorite of the trip, the whole boat-to-the-restaurant thing was the most fun meal-related experience we had on the entire trip. So we definitely recommend it!

We also headed back out to Lighthouse Point for another meal at a place called The Nauti Dawg Marina Cafe, which was right around the corner from Cap’s Place. The food was solid and we got to eat right along the marina, so the kids had fun watching boats come in and dock. There was a wait for this restaurant as well, but near the marina was this really colorful collection of townhouses that we walked around while we waited, keeping count of all of the lizards we could find sunbathing on people’s stoops. Our lizard-count got to over 50 (!!!) and as you can imagine, Sherry was extremely excited the entire time – as were the kids.

Our last meal was at the Ocean Grill & Tiki Bar located in the Beachcomber Resort right near our rental in Pompano Beach. I feel like I should have more to say about the food at each of these places, but it honestly was mostly about the location each night. Sitting right by the water and ordering dessert for the kids was the most fun part. At this restaurant we got to eat beachside in an oversized tiki hut. This was literally the view from our table:

Honestly, a lot of the food blended together because most places had similar menus of seafood, salads, and burgers. We were just excited to find so many interesting dining experiences that were kid friendly. All of the places we mentioned above had kids menus (Beach House’s was verbal, so you had to ask the waiter to list everything) and none of them required any special dress code. We also ate more casual lunches at places like BurgerFi, Lunch Room, and Aruba Beach Cafe.

But one of our most memorable finds of the trip was this place, called… wait for it… Bean & Barnacle.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember that while Sherry was pregnant with our daughter, we referred to her as “Bean” and when she was pregnant with our son, he was dubbed “Barnacle” (by his sister, who was going through an Octonauts phase at the time). So to see that odd pairing of words emblazoned on a Florida coffee shop was such a funny surprise. We stopped in for gelato, and the interior was pretty cool too.

We’ve been home over a week now, and we’re all still mourning the fact that we’re not still in Florida on vacation. It seriously was one of the best trips we’ve taken as a family, and it makes us so eager to take another (and a lot less scared to fly with the kids). So I hope that sharing some of the details are helpful to anyone else who’s contemplating a trip there.

Speaking of which, here are some of our past vacation posts if you’re looking for more travel ideas:

Our Anniversary Trip To Puerto Rico

A Summer Vacation To Destin, Florida

Hawaii Part 1: How We Saved Money

Hawaii Part 2: What We Did 

The post Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[truereviewpage]

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet

Since our daughter started elementary school a few years ago, spring break has become an increasingly precious opportunity to get away, clock some quality family time, and soak in some long-overdue warm weather. Last year’s spring break vacation to Cape Canaveral, Florida checked all of the right boxes and we were tempted to just repeat that trip again this year. But we pushed ourselves to see if we could make this year’s getaway even better and explore a new part of Florida while we were at it – and we are SO GLAD WE DID. So for anyone else looking for a great family vacation spot or, like us, if you’re just ready to start dreaming about next year’s spring break – here’s a quick recap of our family’s trip to South Florida.

Where We Went

Our #1 priority for the trip was “guaranteed beach weather,” and going to South Florida was the most convenient destination that could guarantee us hot temperatures in early April. We love a good road trip, but we wasted four days driving to Florida and back last year… so we decided to give flying a go this year (a first for us with both kids + the dog). A couple of airlines fly direct to Fort Lauderdale from our airport here in Richmond, VA, and we remembered Fort Lauderdale very fondly from our first book tour, so we figured anything within a 30-minute drive of that airport would be perfect. We actually ended up in a small area north of Fort Lauderdale called Pompano Beach and spent most of our time in nearby towns like Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Lighthouse Point (seen below), and Deerfield Beach, so we never actually stepped foot in Fort Lauderdale proper.

We haven’t flown as a family since our 2012 trip to Hawaii when our daughter was nearly 2 years old. Our hellish red-eye flight back to Virginia (there was lots of crying and zero sleeping) planted a deep-seeded fear of flying with children for several years, but now that she’s almost 8 and our son is 4, it felt like a 2-hour direct flight to Florida would be an easy way to dip our toes back into the family flight waters.

The flight went even better than expected. We flew Spirit Airlines (we’re infamously cheap travelers) and even though they nickel-and-dime you for everything from carry-on bags to in-flight water, it ended up being noticeably less expensive than our next best option, JetBlue. We were even able to bring Burger (our chihuahua) with us without any trouble. He flew to Alaska for our honeymoon, so he has proven himself to be a travel champ (yes, we brought our dog on our honeymoon, and yes we know how that sounds). See him there chilling at Sherry’s feet while she sports what she calls her “nervous travel face”?

A rental car was also a must on our list, so we got a minivan to ensure we’d have enough room for luggage, car seats, and beach gear. We brought car seats with us (we weren’t guaranteed that the rental place would have them since we were arriving really late at night) and thankfully Spirit will check car seats and strollers for free. We talked a little bit more about juggling the dog, the dog crate, car seats, bags, and kids at an airport in podcast episode #92 if you’re curious how that went…

Where We Stayed: A Private Rental

Last year’s trip taught us the wonders of renting a house for spring break. Even though we could all pile into a hotel room, we’ve never regretted at least considering the option of not sharing walls with other vacationers (especially when we’ve got kids and a dog with us). Heck, sometimes a beach rental for the week actually breaks down to being cheaper than a hotel when you do the math to figure out the per-night cost. Last year our rental in Cape Canaveral was 1 of 3 units in a building, so we did have people above us and we all shared a communal pool. It ended up not being a problem (the other renters didn’t use the pool very much, so we had it mostly to ourselves) but this year we looked around online for a detached home with its own pool that was still within our budget, and thankfully we found this one.

We searched across Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway for pet-friendly rentals with a pool located within 30 minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport. We found this gem in Pompano Beach on HomeAway and we could not recommend it more highly. It. Was. Awesome. Not only did the kids love having the entire pool to splash around in, but Burger LOVED having free reign of the yard (last year he had to share a fenced area with another dog, and let’s just say they quickly became frenemies).

The interior furnishings are pretty much what you’d expect from a vacation rental (nothing that felt fancy or precious – which is AWESOME when you’re traveling with kids) and the beach wasn’t really within easy walking distance like the listing says, but the pool was PERFECT and the house and neighborhood were pleasantly very quiet and private. It just took us a few minutes to drive down to the beach and we always found parking (which was nice and cheap), so we really ended up loving everything about it.

The house was located in a small residential neighborhood on Terra Mar Island, a little island in the Intracoastal Waterway. This little bit of separation from the main thoroughfare helped it feel like a secluded and charming suburb – unlike all of the high-rise hotels and condos along the oceanfront. It felt nestled, private, and un-trafficed… even though it was close to everything.

The house itself was surrounded by tall thick foliage on all sides – making it feel like you had the whole island to yourself. We skipped the beach entirely for a couple of days because we were having so much fun just hanging out by the pool. And yes, Sherry has never been more convinced that we need a pool at our own house than after this vacation. #helpme

For any other families who might rent this place: they warned me ahead of time that they didn’t provide beach or pool toys (just chairs, towels, and a beach cart). We certainly weren’t going to bring buckets and shovels on the plane, so we planned to buy them at a dollar store once we got down there… but a previous renter had left a couple for us – along with a pool float and ball. We also picked up some beach toys and pool noodles at the CVS just down the street, all of which we left for future renters – so here’s hoping the cycle continues.

What We Did: Beach, Pool, And Eat

We are very chill vacationers and this spot was perfect for that. I know some families love to cram in tons of new activities and sightseeing on vacations, but our goal for this trip was just to unwind and be together, so we consciously avoided the pull to overschedule ourselves. Our kids love spending hours playing in the sand and making up games at the pool, so that’s pretty much all we did – breaking to eat lunch or dinner as needed (we had all of our breakfasts at the house, which was a nice way to save a little money).

The beach we drove to was at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea because it was close (about 5 minutes away) and super charming (see below!). Parking was extremely easy and affordable, and there were some restaurants and shops we could walk to from the beach. The beach always had people on it, but by no stretch would I call it crowded. We always got a spot that felt like it was ours and the kids could build in the sand and run in and out of the water without worrying they were splashing sand on other people and stuff like that. The water was the perfect temperature and “temperament” for us all to play in (read: not too rough, but enough waves to keep things interesting).

I’m sorry not to have more exciting recommendations for what to do, but our typical spring break agenda is usually: beach, pool, eat, nap, repeat. We did venture down to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk one day because it promised some new scenery, but a thunderstorm rolled in right as we arrived so we were rained out of actually enjoying it. The good news is  that by the time we drove home, it was done raining and the kids jumped right back into… you guessed it… the pool.

Where We Ate: Good Food With Good Views

I mentioned that we ate breakfast at home each morning, but we ate out for pretty much every other meal. You guys gave us some FANTASTIC recommendations on Instagram, which we now want to pay forward to anyone else who might be reading this and planning a trip, so thank you for helping to make our trip better than Yelp ever could have. Our first dinner was at a place in Pompano Beach called Beach House because, well, how could we not?

There was a little bit of a wait on a Tuesday night, but we just hung out on the beach until our table was ready. Whoever designed the restaurant outdid themselves (the woven lanterns swayed in the ocean breezes that blew through since the entire restaurant was open-air) and it was very kid friendly. We’re not really food critics, but I’ll say that we both enjoyed our meals a lot! I had ceviche and Sherry had some sort of “life-changing salad” that she couldn’t stop talking about for the rest of the trip.

The next night we tried a restaurant called Cap’s Place in nearby Lighthouse Point, which had been recommended to us because you have to take a (free) boat to get there! You park at this small dock in a town called Lighthouse Point, and this little watercraft picks you up and shuttles you about five minutes across a lake to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself has a really cool backstory: it was built on top of a beached barge and got its start nearly 100 years ago as a rum-running club and casino during the prohibition. They showed us a list of the famous people who’ve eaten there over the years, ranging from FDR to Paris Hilton, so the whole experience was quirky and super memorable. The building was dark and tough to photograph, and while the meal wasn’t our favorite of the trip, the whole boat-to-the-restaurant thing was the most fun meal-related experience we had on the entire trip. So we definitely recommend it!

We also headed back out to Lighthouse Point for another meal at a place called The Nauti Dawg Marina Cafe, which was right around the corner from Cap’s Place. The food was solid and we got to eat right along the marina, so the kids had fun watching boats come in and dock. There was a wait for this restaurant as well, but near the marina was this really colorful collection of townhouses that we walked around while we waited, keeping count of all of the lizards we could find sunbathing on people’s stoops. Our lizard-count got to over 50 (!!!) and as you can imagine, Sherry was extremely excited the entire time – as were the kids.

Our last meal was at the Ocean Grill & Tiki Bar located in the Beachcomber Resort right near our rental in Pompano Beach. I feel like I should have more to say about the food at each of these places, but it honestly was mostly about the location each night. Sitting right by the water and ordering dessert for the kids was the most fun part. At this restaurant we got to eat beachside in an oversized tiki hut. This was literally the view from our table:

Honestly, a lot of the food blended together because most places had similar menus of seafood, salads, and burgers. We were just excited to find so many interesting dining experiences that were kid friendly. All of the places we mentioned above had kids menus (Beach House’s was verbal, so you had to ask the waiter to list everything) and none of them required any special dress code. We also ate more casual lunches at places like BurgerFi, Lunch Room, and Aruba Beach Cafe.

But one of our most memorable finds of the trip was this place, called… wait for it… Bean & Barnacle.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember that while Sherry was pregnant with our daughter, we referred to her as “Bean” and when she was pregnant with our son, he was dubbed “Barnacle” (by his sister, who was going through an Octonauts phase at the time). So to see that odd pairing of words emblazoned on a Florida coffee shop was such a funny surprise. We stopped in for gelato, and the interior was pretty cool too.

We’ve been home over a week now, and we’re all still mourning the fact that we’re not still in Florida on vacation. It seriously was one of the best trips we’ve taken as a family, and it makes us so eager to take another (and a lot less scared to fly with the kids). So I hope that sharing some of the details are helpful to anyone else who’s contemplating a trip there.

Speaking of which, here are some of our past vacation posts if you’re looking for more travel ideas:

Our Anniversary Trip To Puerto Rico

A Summer Vacation To Destin, Florida

Hawaii Part 1: How We Saved Money

Hawaii Part 2: What We Did 

The post Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet published first on https://aireloomreview.tumblr.com/

[billydmacklin]

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet

Since our daughter started elementary school a few years ago, spring break has become an increasingly precious opportunity to get away, clock some quality family time, and soak in some long-overdue warm weather. Last year’s spring break vacation to Cape Canaveral, Florida checked all of the right boxes and we were tempted to just repeat that trip again this year. But we pushed ourselves to see if we could make this year’s getaway even better and explore a new part of Florida while we were at it – and we are SO GLAD WE DID. So for anyone else looking for a great family vacation spot or, like us, if you’re just ready to start dreaming about next year’s spring break – here’s a quick recap of our family’s trip to South Florida.

Where We Went

Our #1 priority for the trip was “guaranteed beach weather,” and going to South Florida was the most convenient destination that could guarantee us hot temperatures in early April. We love a good road trip, but we wasted four days driving to Florida and back last year… so we decided to give flying a go this year (a first for us with both kids + the dog). A couple of airlines fly direct to Fort Lauderdale from our airport here in Richmond, VA, and we remembered Fort Lauderdale very fondly from our first book tour, so we figured anything within a 30-minute drive of that airport would be perfect. We actually ended up in a small area north of Fort Lauderdale called Pompano Beach and spent most of our time in nearby towns like Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Lighthouse Point (seen below), and Deerfield Beach, so we never actually stepped foot in Fort Lauderdale proper.

We haven’t flown as a family since our 2012 trip to Hawaii when our daughter was nearly 2 years old. Our hellish red-eye flight back to Virginia (there was lots of crying and zero sleeping) planted a deep-seeded fear of flying with children for several years, but now that she’s almost 8 and our son is 4, it felt like a 2-hour direct flight to Florida would be an easy way to dip our toes back into the family flight waters.

The flight went even better than expected. We flew Spirit Airlines (we’re infamously cheap travelers) and even though they nickel-and-dime you for everything from carry-on bags to in-flight water, it ended up being noticeably less expensive than our next best option, JetBlue. We were even able to bring Burger (our chihuahua) with us without any trouble. He flew to Alaska for our honeymoon, so he has proven himself to be a travel champ (yes, we brought our dog on our honeymoon, and yes we know how that sounds). See him there chilling at Sherry’s feet while she sports what she calls her “nervous travel face”?

A rental car was also a must on our list, so we got a minivan to ensure we’d have enough room for luggage, car seats, and beach gear. We brought car seats with us (we weren’t guaranteed that the rental place would have them since we were arriving really late at night) and thankfully Spirit will check car seats and strollers for free. We talked a little bit more about juggling the dog, the dog crate, car seats, bags, and kids at an airport in podcast episode #92 if you’re curious how that went…

Where We Stayed: A Private Rental

Last year’s trip taught us the wonders of renting a house for spring break. Even though we could all pile into a hotel room, we’ve never regretted at least considering the option of not sharing walls with other vacationers (especially when we’ve got kids and a dog with us). Heck, sometimes a beach rental for the week actually breaks down to being cheaper than a hotel when you do the math to figure out the per-night cost. Last year our rental in Cape Canaveral was 1 of 3 units in a building, so we did have people above us and we all shared a communal pool. It ended up not being a problem (the other renters didn’t use the pool very much, so we had it mostly to ourselves) but this year we looked around online for a detached home with its own pool that was still within our budget, and thankfully we found this one.

We searched across Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway for pet-friendly rentals with a pool located within 30 minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport. We found this gem in Pompano Beach on HomeAway and we could not recommend it more highly. It. Was. Awesome. Not only did the kids love having the entire pool to splash around in, but Burger LOVED having free reign of the yard (last year he had to share a fenced area with another dog, and let’s just say they quickly became frenemies).

The interior furnishings are pretty much what you’d expect from a vacation rental (nothing that felt fancy or precious – which is AWESOME when you’re traveling with kids) and the beach wasn’t really within easy walking distance like the listing says, but the pool was PERFECT and the house and neighborhood were pleasantly very quiet and private. It just took us a few minutes to drive down to the beach and we always found parking (which was nice and cheap), so we really ended up loving everything about it.

The house was located in a small residential neighborhood on Terra Mar Island, a little island in the Intracoastal Waterway. This little bit of separation from the main thoroughfare helped it feel like a secluded and charming suburb – unlike all of the high-rise hotels and condos along the oceanfront. It felt nestled, private, and un-trafficed… even though it was close to everything.

The house itself was surrounded by tall thick foliage on all sides – making it feel like you had the whole island to yourself. We skipped the beach entirely for a couple of days because we were having so much fun just hanging out by the pool. And yes, Sherry has never been more convinced that we need a pool at our own house than after this vacation. #helpme

For any other families who might rent this place: they warned me ahead of time that they didn’t provide beach or pool toys (just chairs, towels, and a beach cart). We certainly weren’t going to bring buckets and shovels on the plane, so we planned to buy them at a dollar store once we got down there… but a previous renter had left a couple for us – along with a pool float and ball. We also picked up some beach toys and pool noodles at the CVS just down the street, all of which we left for future renters – so here’s hoping the cycle continues.

What We Did: Beach, Pool, And Eat

We are very chill vacationers and this spot was perfect for that. I know some families love to cram in tons of new activities and sightseeing on vacations, but our goal for this trip was just to unwind and be together, so we consciously avoided the pull to overschedule ourselves. Our kids love spending hours playing in the sand and making up games at the pool, so that’s pretty much all we did – breaking to eat lunch or dinner as needed (we had all of our breakfasts at the house, which was a nice way to save a little money).

The beach we drove to was at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea because it was close (about 5 minutes away) and super charming (see below!). Parking was extremely easy and affordable, and there were some restaurants and shops we could walk to from the beach. The beach always had people on it, but by no stretch would I call it crowded. We always got a spot that felt like it was ours and the kids could build in the sand and run in and out of the water without worrying they were splashing sand on other people and stuff like that. The water was the perfect temperature and “temperament” for us all to play in (read: not too rough, but enough waves to keep things interesting).

I’m sorry not to have more exciting recommendations for what to do, but our typical spring break agenda is usually: beach, pool, eat, nap, repeat. We did venture down to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk one day because it promised some new scenery, but a thunderstorm rolled in right as we arrived so we were rained out of actually enjoying it. The good news is  that by the time we drove home, it was done raining and the kids jumped right back into… you guessed it… the pool.

Where We Ate: Good Food With Good Views

I mentioned that we ate breakfast at home each morning, but we ate out for pretty much every other meal. You guys gave us some FANTASTIC recommendations on Instagram, which we now want to pay forward to anyone else who might be reading this and planning a trip, so thank you for helping to make our trip better than Yelp ever could have. Our first dinner was at a place in Pompano Beach called Beach House because, well, how could we not?

There was a little bit of a wait on a Tuesday night, but we just hung out on the beach until our table was ready. Whoever designed the restaurant outdid themselves (the woven lanterns swayed in the ocean breezes that blew through since the entire restaurant was open-air) and it was very kid friendly. We’re not really food critics, but I’ll say that we both enjoyed our meals a lot! I had ceviche and Sherry had some sort of “life-changing salad” that she couldn’t stop talking about for the rest of the trip.

The next night we tried a restaurant called Cap’s Place in nearby Lighthouse Point, which had been recommended to us because you have to take a (free) boat to get there! You park at this small dock in a town called Lighthouse Point, and this little watercraft picks you up and shuttles you about five minutes across a lake to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself has a really cool backstory: it was built on top of a beached barge and got its start nearly 100 years ago as a rum-running club and casino during the prohibition. They showed us a list of the famous people who’ve eaten there over the years, ranging from FDR to Paris Hilton, so the whole experience was quirky and super memorable. The building was dark and tough to photograph, and while the meal wasn’t our favorite of the trip, the whole boat-to-the-restaurant thing was the most fun meal-related experience we had on the entire trip. So we definitely recommend it!

We also headed back out to Lighthouse Point for another meal at a place called The Nauti Dawg Marina Cafe, which was right around the corner from Cap’s Place. The food was solid and we got to eat right along the marina, so the kids had fun watching boats come in and dock. There was a wait for this restaurant as well, but near the marina was this really colorful collection of townhouses that we walked around while we waited, keeping count of all of the lizards we could find sunbathing on people’s stoops. Our lizard-count got to over 50 (!!!) and as you can imagine, Sherry was extremely excited the entire time – as were the kids.

Our last meal was at the Ocean Grill & Tiki Bar located in the Beachcomber Resort right near our rental in Pompano Beach. I feel like I should have more to say about the food at each of these places, but it honestly was mostly about the location each night. Sitting right by the water and ordering dessert for the kids was the most fun part. At this restaurant we got to eat beachside in an oversized tiki hut. This was literally the view from our table:

Honestly, a lot of the food blended together because most places had similar menus of seafood, salads, and burgers. We were just excited to find so many interesting dining experiences that were kid friendly. All of the places we mentioned above had kids menus (Beach House’s was verbal, so you had to ask the waiter to list everything) and none of them required any special dress code. We also ate more casual lunches at places like BurgerFi, Lunch Room, and Aruba Beach Cafe.

But one of our most memorable finds of the trip was this place, called… wait for it… Bean & Barnacle.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember that while Sherry was pregnant with our daughter, we referred to her as “Bean” and when she was pregnant with our son, he was dubbed “Barnacle” (by his sister, who was going through an Octonauts phase at the time). So to see that odd pairing of words emblazoned on a Florida coffee shop was such a funny surprise. We stopped in for gelato, and the interior was pretty cool too.

We’ve been home over a week now, and we’re all still mourning the fact that we’re not still in Florida on vacation. It seriously was one of the best trips we’ve taken as a family, and it makes us so eager to take another (and a lot less scared to fly with the kids). So I hope that sharing some of the details are helpful to anyone else who’s contemplating a trip there.

Speaking of which, here are some of our past vacation posts if you’re looking for more travel ideas:

Our Anniversary Trip To Puerto Rico

A Summer Vacation To Destin, Florida

Hawaii Part 1: How We Saved Money

Hawaii Part 2: What We Did 

The post Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet published first on https://carpetgurus.tumblr.com/

[additionallysad]

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet https://ift.tt/2HJdmfF

Since our daughter started elementary school a few years ago, spring break has become an increasingly precious opportunity to get away, clock some quality family time, and soak in some long-overdue warm weather. Last year’s spring break vacation to Cape Canaveral, Florida checked all of the right boxes and we were tempted to just repeat that trip again this year. But we pushed ourselves to see if we could make this year’s getaway even better and explore a new part of Florida while we were at it – and we are SO GLAD WE DID. So for anyone else looking for a great family vacation spot or, like us, if you’re just ready to start dreaming about next year’s spring break – here’s a quick recap of our family’s trip to South Florida.

Where We Went

Our #1 priority for the trip was “guaranteed beach weather,” and going to South Florida was the most convenient destination that could guarantee us hot temperatures in early April. We love a good road trip, but we wasted four days driving to Florida and back last year… so we decided to give flying a go this year (a first for us with both kids + the dog). A couple of airlines fly direct to Fort Lauderdale from our airport here in Richmond, VA, and we remembered Fort Lauderdale very fondly from our first book tour, so we figured anything within a 30-minute drive of that airport would be perfect. We actually ended up in a small area north of Fort Lauderdale called Pompano Beach and spent most of our time in nearby towns like Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Lighthouse Point (seen below), and Deerfield Beach, so we never actually stepped foot in Fort Lauderdale proper.

We haven’t flown as a family since our 2012 trip to Hawaii when our daughter was nearly 2 years old. Our hellish red-eye flight back to Virginia (there was lots of crying and zero sleeping) planted a deep-seeded fear of flying with children for several years, but now that she’s almost 8 and our son is 4, it felt like a 2-hour direct flight to Florida would be an easy way to dip our toes back into the family flight waters.

The flight went even better than expected. We flew Spirit Airlines (we’re infamously cheap travelers) and even though they nickel-and-dime you for everything from carry-on bags to in-flight water, it ended up being noticeably less expensive than our next best option, JetBlue. We were even able to bring Burger (our chihuahua) with us without any trouble. He flew to Alaska for our honeymoon, so he has proven himself to be a travel champ (yes, we brought our dog on our honeymoon, and yes we know how that sounds). See him there chilling at Sherry’s feet while she sports what she calls her “nervous travel face”?

A rental car was also a must on our list, so we got a minivan to ensure we’d have enough room for luggage, car seats, and beach gear. We bought car seats with us (we weren’t guaranteed that the rental place would have them since we were arriving really late at night) and thankfully Spirit will check car seats and strollers for free. We talked a little bit more about juggling the dog, the dog crate, carseats, bags, and kids at an airport in podcast episode #92 if you’re curious how that went…

Where We Stayed: A Private Rental

Last year’s trip taught us the wonders of renting a house for spring break. Even though we could all pile into a hotel room, we’ve never regretted at least considering the option of not sharing walls with other vacationers (especially when we’ve got kids and a dog with us). Heck, sometimes a beach rental for the week actually breaks down to being cheaper than a hotel when you do the math to figure out the per-night cost. Last year our rental in Cape Canaveral was 1 of 3 units in a building, so we did have people above us and we all shared a communal pool. It ended up not being a problem (the other renters didn’t use the pool very much, so we had it mostly to ourselves) but this year we looked around online for a detached home with its own pool that was still within our budget, and thankfully we found this one.

We searched across Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway for pet-friendly rentals with a pool located within 30 minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport. We found this gem in Pompano Beach on HomeAway and we could not recommend it more highly. It. Was. Awesome. Not only did the kids love having the entire pool to splash around in, but Burger LOVED having free reign of the yard (last year he had to share a fenced area with another dog, and let’s just say they quickly became frenemies).

The interior furnishings are pretty much what you’d expect from a vacation rental (nothing that felt fancy or precious – which is AWESOME when you’re traveling with kids) and the beach wasn’t really within easy walking distance like the listing says, but the pool was PERFECT and the house and neighborhood were pleasantly very quiet and private. It just took us a few minutes to drive down to the beach and we always found parking (which was nice and cheap), so we really ended up loving everything about it.

The house was located in a small residential neighborhood on Terra Mar Island, a little island in the Intracoastal Waterway. This little bit of separation from the main thoroughfare helped it feel like a secluded and charming suburb – unlike all of the high-rise hotels and condos along the oceanfront. It felt nestled, private, and un-trafficed… even though it was close to everything.

The house itself was surrounded by tall thick foliage on all sides – making it feel like you had the whole island to yourself. We skipped the beach entirely for a couple of days because we were having so much fun just hanging out by the pool. And yes, Sherry has never been more convinced that we need a pool at our own house than after this vacation. #helpme

For any other families who might rent this place: they warned me ahead of time that they didn’t provide beach or pool toys (just chairs, towels, and a beach cart). We certainly weren’t going to bring buckets and shovels on the plane, so we planned to buy them at a dollar store once we got down there… but a previous renter had left a couple for us – along with a pool float and ball. We also picked up some beach toys and pool noodles at the CVS just down the street, all of which we left for future renters – so here’s hoping the cycle continues.

What We Did: Beach, Pool, And Eat

We are very chill vacationers and this spot was perfect for that. I know some families love to cram in tons of new activities and sightseeing on vacations, but our goal for this trip was just to unwind and be together, so we consciously avoided the pull to overschedule ourselves. Our kids love spending hours playing in the sand and making up games at the pool, so that’s pretty much all we did – breaking to eat lunch or dinner as needed (we had all of our breakfasts at the house, which was a nice way to save a little money).

The beach we drove to was at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea because it was close (about 5 minutes away) and super charming (see below!). Parking was extremely easy and affordable, and there were some restaurants and shops we could walk to from the beach. The beach always had people on it, but by no stretch would I call it crowded. We always got a spot that felt like it was ours and the kids could build in the sand and run in and out of the water without worrying they were splashing sand on other people and stuff like that. The water was the perfect temperature and “temperament” for us all to play in (read: not too rough, but enough waves to keep things interesting).

I’m sorry not to have more exciting recommendations for what to do, but our typical spring break agenda is usually: beach, pool, eat, nap, repeat. We did venture down to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk one day because it promised some new scenery, but a thunderstorm rolled in right as we arrived so we were rained out of actually enjoying it. The good news is  that by the time we drove home, it was done raining and the kids jumped right back into… you guessed it… the pool.

Where We Ate: Good Food With Good Views

I mentioned that we ate breakfast at home each morning, but we ate out for pretty much every other meal. You guys gave us some FANTASTIC recommendations on Instagram, which we now want to pay forward to anyone else who might be reading this and planning a trip, so thank you for helping to make our trip better than Yelp ever could have. Our first dinner was at a place in Pompano Beach called Beach House because, well, how could we not?

There was a little bit of a wait on a Tuesday night, but we just hung out on the beach until our table was ready. Whoever designed the restaurant outdid themselves (the woven lanterns swayed in the ocean breezes that blew through since the entire restaurant was open-air) and it was very kid friendly. We’re not really food critics, but I’ll say that we both enjoyed our meals a lot! I had ceviche and Sherry had some sort of “life-changing salad” that she couldn’t stop talking about for the rest of the trip.

The next night we tried a restaurant called Cap’s Place in nearby Lighthouse Point, which had been recommended to us because you have to take a (free) boat to get there! You park at this small dock in a town called Lighthouse Point, and this little watercraft picks you up and shuttles you about five minutes across a lake to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself has a really cool backstory: it was built on top of a beached barge and got its start nearly 100 years ago as a rum-running club and casino during the prohibition. They showed us a list of the famous people who’ve eaten there over the years, ranging from FDR to Paris Hilton, so the whole experience was quirky and super memorable. The building was dark and tough to photograph, and while the meal wasn’t our favorite of the trip, the whole boat-to-the-restaurant thing was the most fun meal-related experience we had on the entire trip. So we definitely recommend it!

We also headed back out to Lighthouse Point for another meal at a place called The Nauti Dawg Marina Cafe, which was right around the corner from Cap’s Place. The food was solid and we got to eat right along the marina, so the kids had fun watching boats come in and dock. There was a wait for this restaurant as well, but near the marina was this really colorful collection of townhouses that we walked around while we waited, keeping count of all of the lizards we could find sunbathing on people’s stoops. Our lizard-count got to over 50 (!!!) and as you can imagine, Sherry was extremely excited the entire time – as were the kids.

Our last meal was at the Ocean Grill & Tiki Bar located in the Beachcomber Resort right near our rental in Pompano Beach. I feel like I should have more to say about the food at each of these places, but it honestly was mostly about the location each night. Sitting right by the water and ordering dessert for the kids was the most fun part. At this restaurant we got to eat beachside in an oversized tiki hut. This was literally the view from our table:

Honestly, a lot of the food blended together because most places had similar menus of seafood, salads, and burgers. We were just excited to find so many interesting dining experiences that were kid friendly. All of the places we mentioned above had kids menus (Beach House’s was verbal, so you had to ask the waiter to list everything) and none of them required any special dress code. We also ate more casual lunches at places like BurgerFi, Lunch Room, and Aruba Beach Cafe.

But one of our most memorable finds of the trip was this place, called… wait for it… Bean & Barnacle.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember that while Sherry was pregnant with our daughter, we referred to her as “Bean” and when she was pregnant with our son, he was dubbed “Barnacle” (by his sister, who was going through an Octonauts phase at the time). So to see that odd pairing of words emblazoned on a Florida coffee shop was such a funny surprise. We stopped in for gelato, and the interior was pretty cool too.

We’ve been home over a week now, and we’re all still mourning the fact that we’re not still in Florida on vacation. It seriously was one of the best trips we’ve taken as a family, and it makes us so eager to take another (and a lot less scared to fly with the kids). So I hope that sharing some of the details are helpful to anyone else who’s contemplating a trip there.

Speaking of which, here are some of our past vacation posts if you’re looking for more travel ideas:

Our Anniversary Trip To Puerto Rico

A Summer Vacation To Destin, Florida

Hawaii Part 1: How We Saved Money

Hawaii Part 2: What We Did 

The post Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet appeared first on Young House Love.

[interiorstarweb]

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet

Since our daughter started elementary school a few years ago, spring break has become an increasingly precious opportunity to get away, clock some quality family time, and soak in some long-overdue warm weather. Last year’s spring break vacation to Cape Canaveral, Florida checked all of the right boxes and we were tempted to just repeat that trip again this year. But we pushed ourselves to see if we could make this year’s getaway even better and explore a new part of Florida while we were at it – and we are SO GLAD WE DID. So for anyone else looking for a great family vacation spot or, like us, if you’re just ready to start dreaming about next year’s spring break – here’s a quick recap of our family’s trip to South Florida.

Where We Went

Our #1 priority for the trip was “guaranteed beach weather,” and going to South Florida was the most convenient destination that could guarantee us hot temperatures in early April. We love a good road trip, but we wasted four days driving to Florida and back last year… so we decided to give flying a go this year (a first for us with both kids + the dog). A couple of airlines fly direct to Fort Lauderdale from our airport here in Richmond, VA, and we remembered Fort Lauderdale very fondly from our first book tour, so we figured anything within a 30-minute drive of that airport would be perfect. We actually ended up in a small area north of Fort Lauderdale called Pompano Beach and spent most of our time in nearby towns like Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Lighthouse Point (seen below), and Deerfield Beach, so we never actually stepped foot in Fort Lauderdale proper.

We haven’t flown as a family since our 2012 trip to Hawaii when our daughter was nearly 2 years old. Our hellish red-eye flight back to Virginia (there was lots of crying and zero sleeping) planted a deep-seeded fear of flying with children for several years, but now that she’s almost 8 and our son is 4, it felt like a 2-hour direct flight to Florida would be an easy way to dip our toes back into the family flight waters.

The flight went even better than expected. We flew Spirit Airlines (we’re infamously cheap travelers) and even though they nickel-and-dime you for everything from carry-on bags to in-flight water, it ended up being noticeably less expensive than our next best option, JetBlue. We were even able to bring Burger (our chihuahua) with us without any trouble. He flew to Alaska for our honeymoon, so he has proven himself to be a travel champ (yes, we brought our dog on our honeymoon, and yes we know how that sounds). See him there chilling at Sherry’s feet while she sports what she calls her “nervous travel face”?

A rental car was also a must on our list, so we got a minivan to ensure we’d have enough room for luggage, car seats, and beach gear. We bought car seats with us (we weren’t guaranteed that the rental place would have them since we were arriving really late at night) and thankfully Spirit will check car seats and strollers for free. We talked a little bit more about juggling the dog, the dog crate, carseats, bags, and kids at an airport in podcast episode #92 if you’re curious how that went…

Where We Stayed: A Private Rental

Last year’s trip taught us the wonders of renting a house for spring break. Even though we could all pile into a hotel room, we’ve never regretted at least considering the option of not sharing walls with other vacationers (especially when we’ve got kids and a dog with us). Heck, sometimes a beach rental for the week actually breaks down to being cheaper than a hotel when you do the math to figure out the per-night cost. Last year our rental in Cape Canaveral was 1 of 3 units in a building, so we did have people above us and we all shared a communal pool. It ended up not being a problem (the other renters didn’t use the pool very much, so we had it mostly to ourselves) but this year we looked around online for a detached home with its own pool that was still within our budget, and thankfully we found this one.

We searched across Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway for pet-friendly rentals with a pool located within 30 minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport. We found this gem in Pompano Beach on HomeAway and we could not recommend it more highly. It. Was. Awesome. Not only did the kids love having the entire pool to splash around in, but Burger LOVED having free reign of the yard (last year he had to share a fenced area with another dog, and let’s just say they quickly became frenemies).

The interior furnishings are pretty much what you’d expect from a vacation rental (nothing that felt fancy or precious – which is AWESOME when you’re traveling with kids) and the beach wasn’t really within easy walking distance like the listing says, but the pool was PERFECT and the house and neighborhood were pleasantly very quiet and private. It just took us a few minutes to drive down to the beach and we always found parking (which was nice and cheap), so we really ended up loving everything about it.

The house was located in a small residential neighborhood on Terra Mar Island, a little island in the Intracoastal Waterway. This little bit of separation from the main thoroughfare helped it feel like a secluded and charming suburb – unlike all of the high-rise hotels and condos along the oceanfront. It felt nestled, private, and un-trafficed… even though it was close to everything.

The house itself was surrounded by tall thick foliage on all sides – making it feel like you had the whole island to yourself. We skipped the beach entirely for a couple of days because we were having so much fun just hanging out by the pool. And yes, Sherry has never been more convinced that we need a pool at our own house than after this vacation. #helpme

For any other families who might rent this place: they warned me ahead of time that they didn’t provide beach or pool toys (just chairs, towels, and a beach cart). We certainly weren’t going to bring buckets and shovels on the plane, so we planned to buy them at a dollar store once we got down there… but a previous renter had left a couple for us – along with a pool float and ball. We also picked up some beach toys and pool noodles at the CVS just down the street, all of which we left for future renters – so here’s hoping the cycle continues.

What We Did: Beach, Pool, And Eat

We are very chill vacationers and this spot was perfect for that. I know some families love to cram in tons of new activities and sightseeing on vacations, but our goal for this trip was just to unwind and be together, so we consciously avoided the pull to overschedule ourselves. Our kids love spending hours playing in the sand and making up games at the pool, so that’s pretty much all we did – breaking to eat lunch or dinner as needed (we had all of our breakfasts at the house, which was a nice way to save a little money).

The beach we drove to was at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea because it was close (about 5 minutes away) and super charming (see below!). Parking was extremely easy and affordable, and there were some restaurants and shops we could walk to from the beach. The beach always had people on it, but by no stretch would I call it crowded. We always got a spot that felt like it was ours and the kids could build in the sand and run in and out of the water without worrying they were splashing sand on other people and stuff like that. The water was the perfect temperature and “temperament” for us all to play in (read: not too rough, but enough waves to keep things interesting).

I’m sorry not to have more exciting recommendations for what to do, but our typical spring break agenda is usually: beach, pool, eat, nap, repeat. We did venture down to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk one day because it promised some new scenery, but a thunderstorm rolled in right as we arrived so we were rained out of actually enjoying it. The good news is  that by the time we drove home, it was done raining and the kids jumped right back into… you guessed it… the pool.

Where We Ate: Good Food With Good Views

I mentioned that we ate breakfast at home each morning, but we ate out for pretty much every other meal. You guys gave us some FANTASTIC recommendations on Instagram, which we now want to pay forward to anyone else who might be reading this and planning a trip, so thank you for helping to make our trip better than Yelp ever could have. Our first dinner was at a place in Pompano Beach called Beach House because, well, how could we not?

There was a little bit of a wait on a Tuesday night, but we just hung out on the beach until our table was ready. Whoever designed the restaurant outdid themselves (the woven lanterns swayed in the ocean breezes that blew through since the entire restaurant was open-air) and it was very kid friendly. We’re not really food critics, but I’ll say that we both enjoyed our meals a lot! I had ceviche and Sherry had some sort of “life-changing salad” that she couldn’t stop talking about for the rest of the trip.

The next night we tried a restaurant called Cap’s Place in nearby Lighthouse Point, which had been recommended to us because you have to take a (free) boat to get there! You park at this small dock in a town called Lighthouse Point, and this little watercraft picks you up and shuttles you about five minutes across a lake to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself has a really cool backstory: it was built on top of a beached barge and got its start nearly 100 years ago as a rum-running club and casino during the prohibition. They showed us a list of the famous people who’ve eaten there over the years, ranging from FDR to Paris Hilton, so the whole experience was quirky and super memorable. The building was dark and tough to photograph, and while the meal wasn’t our favorite of the trip, the whole boat-to-the-restaurant thing was the most fun meal-related experience we had on the entire trip. So we definitely recommend it!

We also headed back out to Lighthouse Point for another meal at a place called The Nauti Dawg Marina Cafe, which was right around the corner from Cap’s Place. The food was solid and we got to eat right along the marina, so the kids had fun watching boats come in and dock. There was a wait for this restaurant as well, but near the marina was this really colorful collection of townhouses that we walked around while we waited, keeping count of all of the lizards we could find sunbathing on people’s stoops. Our lizard-count got to over 50 (!!!) and as you can imagine, Sherry was extremely excited the entire time – as were the kids.

Our last meal was at the Ocean Grill & Tiki Bar located in the Beachcomber Resort right near our rental in Pompano Beach. I feel like I should have more to say about the food at each of these places, but it honestly was mostly about the location each night. Sitting right by the water and ordering dessert for the kids was the most fun part. At this restaurant we got to eat beachside in an oversized tiki hut. This was literally the view from our table:

Honestly, a lot of the food blended together because most places had similar menus of seafood, salads, and burgers. We were just excited to find so many interesting dining experiences that were kid friendly. All of the places we mentioned above had kids menus (Beach House’s was verbal, so you had to ask the waiter to list everything) and none of them required any special dress code. We also ate more casual lunches at places like BurgerFi, Lunch Room, and Aruba Beach Cafe.

But one of our most memorable finds of the trip was this place, called… wait for it… Bean & Barnacle.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember that while Sherry was pregnant with our daughter, we referred to her as “Bean” and when she was pregnant with our son, he was dubbed “Barnacle” (by his sister, who was going through an Octonauts phase at the time). So to see that odd pairing of words emblazoned on a Florida coffee shop was such a funny surprise. We stopped in for gelato, and the interior was pretty cool too.

We’ve been home over a week now, and we’re all still mourning the fact that we’re not still in Florida on vacation. It seriously was one of the best trips we’ve taken as a family, and it makes us so eager to take another (and a lot less scared to fly with the kids). So I hope that sharing some of the details are helpful to anyone else who’s contemplating a trip there.

Speaking of which, here are some of our past vacation posts if you’re looking for more travel ideas:

Our Anniversary Trip To Puerto Rico

A Summer Vacation To Destin, Florida

Hawaii Part 1: How We Saved Money

Hawaii Part 2: What We Did 

The post Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet published first on https://novaformmattressreview.tumblr.com/

[yesterdaysdreams]

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet

Since our daughter started elementary school a few years ago, spring break has become an increasingly precious opportunity to get away, clock some quality family time, and soak in some long-overdue warm weather. Last year’s spring break vacation to Cape Canaveral, Florida checked all of the right boxes and we were tempted to just repeat that trip again this year. But we pushed ourselves to see if we could make this year’s getaway even better and explore a new part of Florida while we were at it – and we are SO GLAD WE DID. So for anyone else looking for a great family vacation spot or, like us, if you’re just ready to start dreaming about next year’s spring break – here’s a quick recap of our family’s trip to South Florida.

Where We Went

Our #1 priority for the trip was “guaranteed beach weather,” and going to South Florida was the most convenient destination that could guarantee us hot temperatures in early April. We love a good road trip, but we wasted four days driving to Florida and back last year… so we decided to give flying a go this year (a first for us with both kids + the dog). A couple of airlines fly direct to Fort Lauderdale from our airport here in Richmond, VA, and we remembered Fort Lauderdale very fondly from our first book tour, so we figured anything within a 30-minute drive of that airport would be perfect. We actually ended up in a small area north of Fort Lauderdale called Pompano Beach and spent most of our time in nearby towns like Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Lighthouse Point (seen below), and Deerfield Beach, so we never actually stepped foot in Fort Lauderdale proper.

We haven’t flown as a family since our 2012 trip to Hawaii when our daughter was nearly 2 years old. Our hellish red-eye flight back to Virginia (there was lots of crying and zero sleeping) planted a deep-seeded fear of flying with children for several years, but now that she’s almost 8 and our son is 4, it felt like a 2-hour direct flight to Florida would be an easy way to dip our toes back into the family flight waters.

The flight went even better than expected. We flew Spirit Airlines (we’re infamously cheap travelers) and even though they nickel-and-dime you for everything from carry-on bags to in-flight water, it ended up being noticeably less expensive than our next best option, JetBlue. We were even able to bring Burger (our chihuahua) with us without any trouble. He flew to Alaska for our honeymoon, so he has proven himself to be a travel champ (yes, we brought our dog on our honeymoon, and yes we know how that sounds). See him there chilling at Sherry’s feet while she sports what she calls her “nervous travel face”?

A rental car was also a must on our list, so we got a minivan to ensure we’d have enough room for luggage, car seats, and beach gear. We bought car seats with us (we weren’t guaranteed that the rental place would have them since we were arriving really late at night) and thankfully Spirit will check car seats and strollers for free. We talked a little bit more about juggling the dog, the dog crate, carseats, bags, and kids at an airport in podcast episode #92 if you’re curious how that went…

Where We Stayed: A Private Rental

Last year’s trip taught us the wonders of renting a house for spring break. Even though we could all pile into a hotel room, we’ve never regretted at least considering the option of not sharing walls with other vacationers (especially when we’ve got kids and a dog with us). Heck, sometimes a beach rental for the week actually breaks down to being cheaper than a hotel when you do the math to figure out the per-night cost. Last year our rental in Cape Canaveral was 1 of 3 units in a building, so we did have people above us and we all shared a communal pool. It ended up not being a problem (the other renters didn’t use the pool very much, so we had it mostly to ourselves) but this year we looked around online for a detached home with its own pool that was still within our budget, and thankfully we found this one.

We searched across Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway for pet-friendly rentals with a pool located within 30 minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport. We found this gem in Pompano Beach on HomeAway and we could not recommend it more highly. It. Was. Awesome. Not only did the kids love having the entire pool to splash around in, but Burger LOVED having free reign of the yard (last year he had to share a fenced area with another dog, and let’s just say they quickly became frenemies).

The interior furnishings are pretty much what you’d expect from a vacation rental (nothing that felt fancy or precious – which is AWESOME when you’re traveling with kids) and the beach wasn’t really within easy walking distance like the listing says, but the pool was PERFECT and the house and neighborhood were pleasantly very quiet and private. It just took us a few minutes to drive down to the beach and we always found parking (which was nice and cheap), so we really ended up loving everything about it.

The house was located in a small residential neighborhood on Terra Mar Island, a little island in the Intracoastal Waterway. This little bit of separation from the main thoroughfare helped it feel like a secluded and charming suburb – unlike all of the high-rise hotels and condos along the oceanfront. It felt nestled, private, and un-trafficed… even though it was close to everything.

The house itself was surrounded by tall thick foliage on all sides – making it feel like you had the whole island to yourself. We skipped the beach entirely for a couple of days because we were having so much fun just hanging out by the pool. And yes, Sherry has never been more convinced that we need a pool at our own house than after this vacation. #helpme

For any other families who might rent this place: they warned me ahead of time that they didn’t provide beach or pool toys (just chairs, towels, and a beach cart). We certainly weren’t going to bring buckets and shovels on the plane, so we planned to buy them at a dollar store once we got down there… but a previous renter had left a couple for us – along with a pool float and ball. We also picked up some beach toys and pool noodles at the CVS just down the street, all of which we left for future renters – so here’s hoping the cycle continues.

What We Did: Beach, Pool, And Eat

We are very chill vacationers and this spot was perfect for that. I know some families love to cram in tons of new activities and sightseeing on vacations, but our goal for this trip was just to unwind and be together, so we consciously avoided the pull to overschedule ourselves. Our kids love spending hours playing in the sand and making up games at the pool, so that’s pretty much all we did – breaking to eat lunch or dinner as needed (we had all of our breakfasts at the house, which was a nice way to save a little money).

The beach we drove to was at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea because it was close (about 5 minutes away) and super charming (see below!). Parking was extremely easy and affordable, and there were some restaurants and shops we could walk to from the beach. The beach always had people on it, but by no stretch would I call it crowded. We always got a spot that felt like it was ours and the kids could build in the sand and run in and out of the water without worrying they were splashing sand on other people and stuff like that. The water was the perfect temperature and “temperament” for us all to play in (read: not too rough, but enough waves to keep things interesting).

I’m sorry not to have more exciting recommendations for what to do, but our typical spring break agenda is usually: beach, pool, eat, nap, repeat. We did venture down to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk one day because it promised some new scenery, but a thunderstorm rolled in right as we arrived so we were rained out of actually enjoying it. The good news is  that by the time we drove home, it was done raining and the kids jumped right back into… you guessed it… the pool.

Where We Ate: Good Food With Good Views

I mentioned that we ate breakfast at home each morning, but we ate out for pretty much every other meal. You guys gave us some FANTASTIC recommendations on Instagram, which we now want to pay forward to anyone else who might be reading this and planning a trip, so thank you for helping to make our trip better than Yelp ever could have. Our first dinner was at a place in Pompano Beach called Beach House because, well, how could we not?

There was a little bit of a wait on a Tuesday night, but we just hung out on the beach until our table was ready. Whoever designed the restaurant outdid themselves (the woven lanterns swayed in the ocean breezes that blew through since the entire restaurant was open-air) and it was very kid friendly. We’re not really food critics, but I’ll say that we both enjoyed our meals a lot! I had ceviche and Sherry had some sort of “life-changing salad” that she couldn’t stop talking about for the rest of the trip.

The next night we tried a restaurant called Cap’s Place in nearby Lighthouse Point, which had been recommended to us because you have to take a (free) boat to get there! You park at this small dock in a town called Lighthouse Point, and this little watercraft picks you up and shuttles you about five minutes across a lake to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself has a really cool backstory: it was built on top of a beached barge and got its start nearly 100 years ago as a rum-running club and casino during the prohibition. They showed us a list of the famous people who’ve eaten there over the years, ranging from FDR to Paris Hilton, so the whole experience was quirky and super memorable. The building was dark and tough to photograph, and while the meal wasn’t our favorite of the trip, the whole boat-to-the-restaurant thing was the most fun meal-related experience we had on the entire trip. So we definitely recommend it!

We also headed back out to Lighthouse Point for another meal at a place called The Nauti Dawg Marina Cafe, which was right around the corner from Cap’s Place. The food was solid and we got to eat right along the marina, so the kids had fun watching boats come in and dock. There was a wait for this restaurant as well, but near the marina was this really colorful collection of townhouses that we walked around while we waited, keeping count of all of the lizards we could find sunbathing on people’s stoops. Our lizard-count got to over 50 (!!!) and as you can imagine, Sherry was extremely excited the entire time – as were the kids.

Our last meal was at the Ocean Grill & Tiki Bar located in the Beachcomber Resort right near our rental in Pompano Beach. I feel like I should have more to say about the food at each of these places, but it honestly was mostly about the location each night. Sitting right by the water and ordering dessert for the kids was the most fun part. At this restaurant we got to eat beachside in an oversized tiki hut. This was literally the view from our table:

Honestly, a lot of the food blended together because most places had similar menus of seafood, salads, and burgers. We were just excited to find so many interesting dining experiences that were kid friendly. All of the places we mentioned above had kids menus (Beach House’s was verbal, so you had to ask the waiter to list everything) and none of them required any special dress code. We also ate more casual lunches at places like BurgerFi, Lunch Room, and Aruba Beach Cafe.

But one of our most memorable finds of the trip was this place, called… wait for it… Bean & Barnacle.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember that while Sherry was pregnant with our daughter, we referred to her as “Bean” and when she was pregnant with our son, he was dubbed “Barnacle” (by his sister, who was going through an Octonauts phase at the time). So to see that odd pairing of words emblazoned on a Florida coffee shop was such a funny surprise. We stopped in for gelato, and the interior was pretty cool too.

We’ve been home over a week now, and we’re all still mourning the fact that we’re not still in Florida on vacation. It seriously was one of the best trips we’ve taken as a family, and it makes us so eager to take another (and a lot less scared to fly with the kids). So I hope that sharing some of the details are helpful to anyone else who’s contemplating a trip there.

Speaking of which, here are some of our past vacation posts if you’re looking for more travel ideas:

Our Anniversary Trip To Puerto Rico

A Summer Vacation To Destin, Florida

Hawaii Part 1: How We Saved Money

Hawaii Part 2: What We Did 

The post Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet appeared first on Young House Love.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8265713 https://ift.tt/2HJdmfF via IFTTT

[statusreview]

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet

Since our daughter started elementary school a few years ago, spring break has become an increasingly precious opportunity to get away, clock some quality family time, and soak in some long-overdue warm weather. Last year’s spring break vacation to Cape Canaveral, Florida checked all of the right boxes and we were tempted to just repeat that trip again this year. But we pushed ourselves to see if we could make this year’s getaway even better and explore a new part of Florida while we were at it – and we are SO GLAD WE DID. So for anyone else looking for a great family vacation spot or, like us, if you’re just ready to start dreaming about next year’s spring break – here’s a quick recap of our family’s trip to South Florida.

Where We Went

Our #1 priority for the trip was “guaranteed beach weather,” and going to South Florida was the most convenient destination that could guarantee us hot temperatures in early April. We love a good road trip, but we wasted four days driving to Florida and back last year… so we decided to give flying a go this year (a first for us with both kids + the dog). A couple of airlines fly direct to Fort Lauderdale from our airport here in Richmond, VA, and we remembered Fort Lauderdale very fondly from our first book tour, so we figured anything within a 30-minute drive of that airport would be perfect. We actually ended up in a small area north of Fort Lauderdale called Pompano Beach and spent most of our time in nearby towns like Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Lighthouse Point (seen below), and Deerfield Beach, so we never actually stepped foot in Fort Lauderdale proper.

We haven’t flown as a family since our 2012 trip to Hawaii when our daughter was nearly 2 years old. Our hellish red-eye flight back to Virginia (there was lots of crying and zero sleeping) planted a deep-seeded fear of flying with children for several years, but now that she’s almost 8 and our son is 4, it felt like a 2-hour direct flight to Florida would be an easy way to dip our toes back into the family flight waters.

The flight went even better than expected. We flew Spirit Airlines (we’re infamously cheap travelers) and even though they nickel-and-dime you for everything from carry-on bags to in-flight water, it ended up being noticeably less expensive than our next best option, JetBlue. We were even able to bring Burger (our chihuahua) with us without any trouble. He flew to Alaska for our honeymoon, so he has proven himself to be a travel champ (yes, we brought our dog on our honeymoon, and yes we know how that sounds). See him there chilling at Sherry’s feet while she sports what she calls her “nervous travel face”?

A rental car was also a must on our list, so we got a minivan to ensure we’d have enough room for luggage, car seats, and beach gear. We bought car seats with us (we weren’t guaranteed that the rental place would have them since we were arriving really late at night) and thankfully Spirit will check car seats and strollers for free. We talked a little bit more about juggling the dog, the dog crate, carseats, bags, and kids at an airport in podcast episode #92 if you’re curious how that went…

Where We Stayed: A Private Rental

Last year’s trip taught us the wonders of renting a house for spring break. Even though we could all pile into a hotel room, we’ve never regretted at least considering the option of not sharing walls with other vacationers (especially when we’ve got kids and a dog with us). Heck, sometimes a beach rental for the week actually breaks down to being cheaper than a hotel when you do the math to figure out the per-night cost. Last year our rental in Cape Canaveral was 1 of 3 units in a building, so we did have people above us and we all shared a communal pool. It ended up not being a problem (the other renters didn’t use the pool very much, so we had it mostly to ourselves) but this year we looked around online for a detached home with its own pool that was still within our budget, and thankfully we found this one.

We searched across Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway for pet-friendly rentals with a pool located within 30 minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport. We found this gem in Pompano Beach on HomeAway and we could not recommend it more highly. It. Was. Awesome. Not only did the kids love having the entire pool to splash around in, but Burger LOVED having free reign of the yard (last year he had to share a fenced area with another dog, and let’s just say they quickly became frenemies).

The interior furnishings are pretty much what you’d expect from a vacation rental (nothing that felt fancy or precious – which is AWESOME when you’re traveling with kids) and the beach wasn’t really within easy walking distance like the listing says, but the pool was PERFECT and the house and neighborhood were pleasantly very quiet and private. It just took us a few minutes to drive down to the beach and we always found parking (which was nice and cheap), so we really ended up loving everything about it.

The house was located in a small residential neighborhood on Terra Mar Island, a little island in the Intracoastal Waterway. This little bit of separation from the main thoroughfare helped it feel like a secluded and charming suburb – unlike all of the high-rise hotels and condos along the oceanfront. It felt nestled, private, and un-trafficed… even though it was close to everything.

The house itself was surrounded by tall thick foliage on all sides – making it feel like you had the whole island to yourself. We skipped the beach entirely for a couple of days because we were having so much fun just hanging out by the pool. And yes, Sherry has never been more convinced that we need a pool at our own house than after this vacation. #helpme

For any other families who might rent this place: they warned me ahead of time that they didn’t provide beach or pool toys (just chairs, towels, and a beach cart). We certainly weren’t going to bring buckets and shovels on the plane, so we planned to buy them at a dollar store once we got down there… but a previous renter had left a couple for us – along with a pool float and ball. We also picked up some beach toys and pool noodles at the CVS just down the street, all of which we left for future renters – so here’s hoping the cycle continues.

What We Did: Beach, Pool, And Eat

We are very chill vacationers and this spot was perfect for that. I know some families love to cram in tons of new activities and sightseeing on vacations, but our goal for this trip was just to unwind and be together, so we consciously avoided the pull to overschedule ourselves. Our kids love spending hours playing in the sand and making up games at the pool, so that’s pretty much all we did – breaking to eat lunch or dinner as needed (we had all of our breakfasts at the house, which was a nice way to save a little money).

The beach we drove to was at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea because it was close (about 5 minutes away) and super charming (see below!). Parking was extremely easy and affordable, and there were some restaurants and shops we could walk to from the beach. The beach always had people on it, but by no stretch would I call it crowded. We always got a spot that felt like it was ours and the kids could build in the sand and run in and out of the water without worrying they were splashing sand on other people and stuff like that. The water was the perfect temperature and “temperament” for us all to play in (read: not too rough, but enough waves to keep things interesting).

I’m sorry not to have more exciting recommendations for what to do, but our typical spring break agenda is usually: beach, pool, eat, nap, repeat. We did venture down to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk one day because it promised some new scenery, but a thunderstorm rolled in right as we arrived so we were rained out of actually enjoying it. The good news is  that by the time we drove home, it was done raining and the kids jumped right back into… you guessed it… the pool.

Where We Ate: Good Food With Good Views

I mentioned that we ate breakfast at home each morning, but we ate out for pretty much every other meal. You guys gave us some FANTASTIC recommendations on Instagram, which we now want to pay forward to anyone else who might be reading this and planning a trip, so thank you for helping to make our trip better than Yelp ever could have. Our first dinner was at a place in Pompano Beach called Beach House because, well, how could we not?

There was a little bit of a wait on a Tuesday night, but we just hung out on the beach until our table was ready. Whoever designed the restaurant outdid themselves (the woven lanterns swayed in the ocean breezes that blew through since the entire restaurant was open-air) and it was very kid friendly. We’re not really food critics, but I’ll say that we both enjoyed our meals a lot! I had ceviche and Sherry had some sort of “life-changing salad” that she couldn’t stop talking about for the rest of the trip.

The next night we tried a restaurant called Cap’s Place in nearby Lighthouse Point, which had been recommended to us because you have to take a (free) boat to get there! You park at this small dock in a town called Lighthouse Point, and this little watercraft picks you up and shuttles you about five minutes across a lake to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself has a really cool backstory: it was built on top of a beached barge and got its start nearly 100 years ago as a rum-running club and casino during the prohibition. They showed us a list of the famous people who’ve eaten there over the years, ranging from FDR to Paris Hilton, so the whole experience was quirky and super memorable. The building was dark and tough to photograph, and while the meal wasn’t our favorite of the trip, the whole boat-to-the-restaurant thing was the most fun meal-related experience we had on the entire trip. So we definitely recommend it!

We also headed back out to Lighthouse Point for another meal at a place called The Nauti Dawg Marina Cafe, which was right around the corner from Cap’s Place. The food was solid and we got to eat right along the marina, so the kids had fun watching boats come in and dock. There was a wait for this restaurant as well, but near the marina was this really colorful collection of townhouses that we walked around while we waited, keeping count of all of the lizards we could find sunbathing on people’s stoops. Our lizard-count got to over 50 (!!!) and as you can imagine, Sherry was extremely excited the entire time – as were the kids.

Our last meal was at the Ocean Grill & Tiki Bar located in the Beachcomber Resort right near our rental in Pompano Beach. I feel like I should have more to say about the food at each of these places, but it honestly was mostly about the location each night. Sitting right by the water and ordering dessert for the kids was the most fun part. At this restaurant we got to eat beachside in an oversized tiki hut. This was literally the view from our table:

Honestly, a lot of the food blended together because most places had similar menus of seafood, salads, and burgers. We were just excited to find so many interesting dining experiences that were kid friendly. All of the places we mentioned above had kids menus (Beach House’s was verbal, so you had to ask the waiter to list everything) and none of them required any special dress code. We also ate more casual lunches at places like BurgerFi, Lunch Room, and Aruba Beach Cafe.

One of our most memorable finds of the trip was this place, called… wait for it… Bean & Barnacle.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember that while Sherry was pregnant with our daughter, we referred to her as “Bean” and when she was pregnant with our son, he was dubbed “Barnacle” (by his sister, who was going through an Octonauts phase at the time). So to see that odd pairing of words emblazoned on a Florida coffee shop was such a funny surprise. We stopped in for gelato, and the interior was pretty cool too.

We’ve been home over a week now, and we’re all still mourning the fact that we’re not still in Florida on vacation. It seriously was one of the best trips we’ve taken as a family, and it makes us so eager to take another (and a lot less scared to fly with the kids). So I hope that sharing some of the details are helpful to anyone else who’s contemplating a trip there.

Speaking of which, here are some of our past vacation posts if you’re looking for more travel ideas:

Our Anniversary Trip To Puerto Rico

A Summer Vacation To Destin, Florida

Hawaii Part 1: How We Saved Money

Hawaii Part 2: What We Did 

The post Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet published first on https://ssmattress.tumblr.com/

[vincentbnaughton]

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet

Since our daughter started elementary school a few years ago, spring break has become an increasingly precious opportunity to get away, clock some quality family time, and soak in some long-overdue warm weather. Last year’s spring break vacation to Cape Canaveral, Florida checked all of the right boxes and we were tempted to just repeat that trip again this year. But we pushed ourselves to see if we could make this year’s getaway even better and explore a new part of Florida while we were at it – and we are SO GLAD WE DID. So for anyone else looking for a great family vacation spot or, like us, if you’re just ready to start dreaming about next year’s spring break – here’s a quick recap of our family’s trip to South Florida.

Where We Went

Our #1 priority for the trip was “guaranteed beach weather,” and going to South Florida was the most convenient destination that could guarantee us hot temperatures in early April. We love a good road trip, but we wasted four days driving to Florida and back last year… so we decided to give flying a go this year (a first for us with both kids + the dog). A couple of airlines fly direct to Fort Lauderdale from our airport here in Richmond, VA, and we remembered Fort Lauderdale very fondly from our first book tour, so we figured anything within a 30-minute drive of that airport would be perfect. We actually ended up in a small area north of Fort Lauderdale called Pompano Beach and spent most of our time in nearby towns like Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Lighthouse Point (seen below), and Deerfield Beach, so we never actually stepped foot in Fort Lauderdale proper.

We haven’t flown as a family since our 2012 trip to Hawaii when our daughter was nearly 2 years old. Our hellish red-eye flight back to Virginia (there was lots of crying and zero sleeping) planted a deep-seeded fear of flying with children for several years, but now that she’s almost 8 and our son is 4, it felt like a 2-hour direct flight to Florida would be an easy way to dip our toes back into the family flight waters.

The flight went even better than expected. We flew Spirit Airlines (we’re infamously cheap travelers) and even though they nickel-and-dime you for everything from carry-on bags to in-flight water, it ended up being noticeably less expensive than our next best option, JetBlue. We were even able to bring Burger (our chihuahua) with us without any trouble. He flew to Alaska for our honeymoon, so he has proven himself to be a travel champ (yes, we brought our dog on our honeymoon, and yes we know how that sounds). See him there chilling at Sherry’s feet while she sports what she calls her “nervous travel face”?

A rental car was also a must on our list, so we got a minivan to ensure we’d have enough room for luggage, car seats, and beach gear. We bought car seats with us (we weren’t guaranteed that the rental place would have them since we were arriving really late at night) and thankfully Spirit will check car seats and strollers for free. We talked a little bit more about juggling the dog, the dog crate, carseats, bags, and kids at an airport in podcast episode #92 if you’re curious how that went…

Where We Stayed: A Private Rental

Last year’s trip taught us the wonders of renting a house for spring break. Even though we could all pile into a hotel room, we’ve never regretted at least considering the option of not sharing walls with other vacationers (especially when we’ve got kids and a dog with us). Heck, sometimes a beach rental for the week actually breaks down to being cheaper than a hotel when you do the math to figure out the per-night cost. Last year our rental in Cape Canaveral was 1 of 3 units in a building, so we did have people above us and we all shared a communal pool. It ended up not being a problem (the other renters didn’t use the pool very much, so we had it mostly to ourselves) but this year we looked around online for a detached home with its own pool that was still within our budget, and thankfully we found this one.

We searched across Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway for pet-friendly rentals with a pool located within 30 minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport. We found this gem in Pompano Beach on HomeAway and we could not recommend it more highly. It. Was. Awesome. Not only did the kids love having the entire pool to splash around in, but Burger LOVED having free reign of the yard (last year he had to share a fenced area with another dog, and let’s just say they quickly became frenemies).

The interior furnishings are pretty much what you’d expect from a vacation rental (nothing that felt fancy or precious – which is AWESOME when you’re traveling with kids) and the beach wasn’t really within easy walking distance like the listing says, but the pool was PERFECT and the house and neighborhood were pleasantly very quiet and private. It just took us a few minutes to drive down to the beach and we always found parking (which was nice and cheap), so we really ended up loving everything about it.

The house was located in a small residential neighborhood on Terra Mar Island, a little island in the Intracoastal Waterway. This little bit of separation from the main thoroughfare helped it feel like a secluded and charming suburb – unlike all of the high-rise hotels and condos along the oceanfront. It felt nestled, private, and un-trafficed… even though it was close to everything.

The house itself was surrounded by tall thick foliage on all sides – making it feel like you had the whole island to yourself. We skipped the beach entirely for a couple of days because we were having so much fun just hanging out by the pool. And yes, Sherry has never been more convinced that we need a pool at our own house than after this vacation. #helpme

For any other families who might rent this place: they warned me ahead of time that they didn’t provide beach or pool toys (just chairs, towels, and a beach cart). We certainly weren’t going to bring buckets and shovels on the plane, so we planned to buy them at a dollar store once we got down there… but a previous renter had left a couple for us – along with a pool float and ball. We also picked up some beach toys and pool noodles at the CVS just down the street, all of which we left for future renters – so here’s hoping the cycle continues.

What We Did: Beach, Pool, And Eat

We are very chill vacationers and this spot was perfect for that. I know some families love to cram in tons of new activities and sightseeing on vacations, but our goal for this trip was just to unwind and be together, so we consciously avoided the pull to overschedule ourselves. Our kids love spending hours playing in the sand and making up games at the pool, so that’s pretty much all we did – breaking to eat lunch or dinner as needed (we had all of our breakfasts at the house, which was a nice way to save a little money).

The beach we drove to was at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea because it was close (about 5 minutes away) and super charming (see below!). Parking was extremely easy and affordable, and there were some restaurants and shops we could walk to from the beach. The beach always had people on it, but by no stretch would I call it crowded. We always got a spot that felt like it was ours and the kids could build in the sand and run in and out of the water without worrying they were splashing sand on other people and stuff like that. The water was the perfect temperature and “temperament” for us all to play in (read: not too rough, but enough waves to keep things interesting).

I’m sorry not to have more exciting recommendations for what to do, but our typical spring break agenda is usually: beach, pool, eat, nap, repeat. We did venture down to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk one day because it promised some new scenery, but a thunderstorm rolled in right as we arrived so we were rained out of actually enjoying it. The good news is  that by the time we drove home, it was done raining and the kids jumped right back into… you guessed it… the pool.

Where We Ate: Good Food With Good Views

I mentioned that we ate breakfast at home each morning, but we ate out for pretty much every other meal. You guys gave us some FANTASTIC recommendations on Instagram, which we now want to pay forward to anyone else who might be reading this and planning a trip, so thank you for helping to make our trip better than Yelp ever could have. Our first dinner was at a place in Pompano Beach called Beach House because, well, how could we not?

There was a little bit of a wait on a Tuesday night, but we just hung out on the beach until our table was ready. Whoever designed the restaurant outdid themselves (the woven lanterns swayed in the ocean breezes that blew through since the entire restaurant was open-air) and it was very kid friendly. We’re not really food critics, but I’ll say that we both enjoyed our meals a lot! I had ceviche and Sherry had some sort of “life-changing salad” that she couldn’t stop talking about for the rest of the trip.

The next night we tried a restaurant called Cap’s Place in nearby Lighthouse Point, which had been recommended to us because you have to take a (free) boat to get there! You park at this small dock in a town called Lighthouse Point, and this little watercraft picks you up and shuttles you about five minutes across a lake to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself has a really cool backstory: it was built on top of a beached barge and got its start nearly 100 years ago as a rum-running club and casino during the prohibition. They showed us a list of the famous people who’ve eaten there over the years, ranging from FDR to Paris Hilton, so the whole experience was quirky and super memorable. The building was dark and tough to photograph, and while the meal wasn’t our favorite of the trip, the whole boat-to-the-restaurant thing was the most fun meal-related experience we had on the entire trip. So we definitely recommend it!

We also headed back out to Lighthouse Point for another meal at a place called The Nauti Dawg Marina Cafe, which was right around the corner from Cap’s Place. The food was solid and we got to eat right along the marina, so the kids had fun watching boats come in and dock. There was a wait for this restaurant as well, but near the marina was this really colorful collection of townhouses that we walked around while we waited, keeping count of all of the lizards we could find sunbathing on people’s stoops. Our lizard-count got to over 50 (!!!) and as you can imagine, Sherry was extremely excited the entire time – as were the kids.

Our last meal was at the Ocean Grill & Tiki Bar located in the Beachcomber Resort right near our rental in Pompano Beach. I feel like I should have more to say about the food at each of these places, but it honestly was mostly about the location each night. Sitting right by the water and ordering dessert for the kids was the most fun part. At this restaurant we got to eat beachside in an oversized tiki hut. This was literally the view from our table:

Honestly, a lot of the food blended together because most places had similar menus of seafood, salads, and burgers. We were just excited to find so many interesting dining experiences that were kid friendly. All of the places we mentioned above had kids menus (Beach House’s was verbal, so you had to ask the waiter to list everything) and none of them required any special dress code. We also ate more casual lunches at places like BurgerFi, Lunch Room, and Aruba Beach Cafe.

But one of our most memorable finds of the trip was this place, called… wait for it… Bean & Barnacle.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember that while Sherry was pregnant with our daughter, we referred to her as “Bean” and when she was pregnant with our son, he was dubbed “Barnacle” (by his sister, who was going through an Octonauts phase at the time). So to see that odd pairing of words emblazoned on a Florida coffee shop was such a funny surprise. We stopped in for gelato, and the interior was pretty cool too.

We’ve been home over a week now, and we’re all still mourning the fact that we’re not still in Florida on vacation. It seriously was one of the best trips we’ve taken as a family, and it makes us so eager to take another (and a lot less scared to fly with the kids). So I hope that sharing some of the details are helpful to anyone else who’s contemplating a trip there.

Speaking of which, here are some of our past vacation posts if you’re looking for more travel ideas:

Our Anniversary Trip To Puerto Rico

A Summer Vacation To Destin, Florida

Hawaii Part 1: How We Saved Money

Hawaii Part 2: What We Did 

The post Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet appeared first on Young House Love.

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Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet

Since our daughter started elementary school a few years ago, spring break has become an increasingly precious opportunity to get away, clock some quality family time, and soak in some long-overdue warm weather. Last year’s spring break vacation to Cape Canaveral, Florida checked all of the right boxes and we were tempted to just repeat that trip again this year. But we pushed ourselves to see if we could make this year’s getaway even better and explore a new part of Florida while we were at it – and we are SO GLAD WE DID. So for anyone else looking for a great family vacation spot or, like us, if you’re just ready to start dreaming about next year’s spring break – here’s a quick recap of our family’s trip to South Florida.

Where We Went

Our #1 priority for the trip was “guaranteed beach weather,” and going to South Florida was the most convenient destination that could guarantee us hot temperatures in early April. We love a good road trip, but we wasted four days driving to Florida and back last year… so we decided to give flying a go this year (a first for us with both kids + the dog). A couple of airlines fly direct to Fort Lauderdale from our airport here in Richmond, VA, and we remembered Fort Lauderdale very fondly from our first book tour, so we figured anything within a 30-minute drive of that airport would be perfect. We actually ended up in a small area north of Fort Lauderdale called Pompano Beach and spent most of our time in nearby towns like Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Lighthouse Point (seen below), and Deerfield Beach, so we never actually stepped foot in Fort Lauderdale proper.

We haven’t flown as a family since our 2012 trip to Hawaii when our daughter was nearly 2 years old. Our hellish red-eye flight back to Virginia (there was lots of crying and zero sleeping) planted a deep-seeded fear of flying with children for several years, but now that she’s almost 8 and our son is 4, it felt like a 2-hour direct flight to Florida would be an easy way to dip our toes back into the family flight waters.

The flight went even better than expected. We flew Spirit Airlines (we’re infamously cheap travelers) and even though they nickel-and-dime you for everything from carry-on bags to in-flight water, it ended up being noticeably less expensive than our next best option, JetBlue. We were even able to bring Burger (our chihuahua) with us without any trouble. He flew to Alaska for our honeymoon, so he has proven himself to be a travel champ (yes, we brought our dog on our honeymoon, and yes we know how that sounds). See him there chilling at Sherry’s feet while she sports what she calls her “nervous travel face”?

A rental car was also a must on our list, so we got a minivan to ensure we’d have enough room for luggage, car seats, and beach gear. We brought car seats with us (we weren’t guaranteed that the rental place would have them since we were arriving really late at night) and thankfully Spirit will check car seats and strollers for free. We talked a little bit more about juggling the dog, the dog crate, car seats, bags, and kids at an airport in podcast episode #92 if you’re curious how that went…

Where We Stayed: A Private Rental

Last year’s trip taught us the wonders of renting a house for spring break. Even though we could all pile into a hotel room, we’ve never regretted at least considering the option of not sharing walls with other vacationers (especially when we’ve got kids and a dog with us). Heck, sometimes a beach rental for the week actually breaks down to being cheaper than a hotel when you do the math to figure out the per-night cost. Last year our rental in Cape Canaveral was 1 of 3 units in a building, so we did have people above us and we all shared a communal pool. It ended up not being a problem (the other renters didn’t use the pool very much, so we had it mostly to ourselves) but this year we looked around online for a detached home with its own pool that was still within our budget, and thankfully we found this one.

We searched across Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway for pet-friendly rentals with a pool located within 30 minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport. We found this gem in Pompano Beach on HomeAway and we could not recommend it more highly. It. Was. Awesome. Not only did the kids love having the entire pool to splash around in, but Burger LOVED having free reign of the yard (last year he had to share a fenced area with another dog, and let’s just say they quickly became frenemies).

The interior furnishings are pretty much what you’d expect from a vacation rental (nothing that felt fancy or precious – which is AWESOME when you’re traveling with kids) and the beach wasn’t really within easy walking distance like the listing says, but the pool was PERFECT and the house and neighborhood were pleasantly very quiet and private. It just took us a few minutes to drive down to the beach and we always found parking (which was nice and cheap), so we really ended up loving everything about it.

The house was located in a small residential neighborhood on Terra Mar Island, a little island in the Intracoastal Waterway. This little bit of separation from the main thoroughfare helped it feel like a secluded and charming suburb – unlike all of the high-rise hotels and condos along the oceanfront. It felt nestled, private, and un-trafficed… even though it was close to everything.

The house itself was surrounded by tall thick foliage on all sides – making it feel like you had the whole island to yourself. We skipped the beach entirely for a couple of days because we were having so much fun just hanging out by the pool. And yes, Sherry has never been more convinced that we need a pool at our own house than after this vacation. #helpme

For any other families who might rent this place: they warned me ahead of time that they didn’t provide beach or pool toys (just chairs, towels, and a beach cart). We certainly weren’t going to bring buckets and shovels on the plane, so we planned to buy them at a dollar store once we got down there… but a previous renter had left a couple for us – along with a pool float and ball. We also picked up some beach toys and pool noodles at the CVS just down the street, all of which we left for future renters – so here’s hoping the cycle continues.

What We Did: Beach, Pool, And Eat

We are very chill vacationers and this spot was perfect for that. I know some families love to cram in tons of new activities and sightseeing on vacations, but our goal for this trip was just to unwind and be together, so we consciously avoided the pull to overschedule ourselves. Our kids love spending hours playing in the sand and making up games at the pool, so that’s pretty much all we did – breaking to eat lunch or dinner as needed (we had all of our breakfasts at the house, which was a nice way to save a little money).

The beach we drove to was at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea because it was close (about 5 minutes away) and super charming (see below!). Parking was extremely easy and affordable, and there were some restaurants and shops we could walk to from the beach. The beach always had people on it, but by no stretch would I call it crowded. We always got a spot that felt like it was ours and the kids could build in the sand and run in and out of the water without worrying they were splashing sand on other people and stuff like that. The water was the perfect temperature and “temperament” for us all to play in (read: not too rough, but enough waves to keep things interesting).

I’m sorry not to have more exciting recommendations for what to do, but our typical spring break agenda is usually: beach, pool, eat, nap, repeat. We did venture down to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk one day because it promised some new scenery, but a thunderstorm rolled in right as we arrived so we were rained out of actually enjoying it. The good news is  that by the time we drove home, it was done raining and the kids jumped right back into… you guessed it… the pool.

Where We Ate: Good Food With Good Views

I mentioned that we ate breakfast at home each morning, but we ate out for pretty much every other meal. You guys gave us some FANTASTIC recommendations on Instagram, which we now want to pay forward to anyone else who might be reading this and planning a trip, so thank you for helping to make our trip better than Yelp ever could have. Our first dinner was at a place in Pompano Beach called Beach House because, well, how could we not?

There was a little bit of a wait on a Tuesday night, but we just hung out on the beach until our table was ready. Whoever designed the restaurant outdid themselves (the woven lanterns swayed in the ocean breezes that blew through since the entire restaurant was open-air) and it was very kid friendly. We’re not really food critics, but I’ll say that we both enjoyed our meals a lot! I had ceviche and Sherry had some sort of “life-changing salad” that she couldn’t stop talking about for the rest of the trip.

The next night we tried a restaurant called Cap’s Place in nearby Lighthouse Point, which had been recommended to us because you have to take a (free) boat to get there! You park at this small dock in a town called Lighthouse Point, and this little watercraft picks you up and shuttles you about five minutes across a lake to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself has a really cool backstory: it was built on top of a beached barge and got its start nearly 100 years ago as a rum-running club and casino during the prohibition. They showed us a list of the famous people who’ve eaten there over the years, ranging from FDR to Paris Hilton, so the whole experience was quirky and super memorable. The building was dark and tough to photograph, and while the meal wasn’t our favorite of the trip, the whole boat-to-the-restaurant thing was the most fun meal-related experience we had on the entire trip. So we definitely recommend it!

We also headed back out to Lighthouse Point for another meal at a place called The Nauti Dawg Marina Cafe, which was right around the corner from Cap’s Place. The food was solid and we got to eat right along the marina, so the kids had fun watching boats come in and dock. There was a wait for this restaurant as well, but near the marina was this really colorful collection of townhouses that we walked around while we waited, keeping count of all of the lizards we could find sunbathing on people’s stoops. Our lizard-count got to over 50 (!!!) and as you can imagine, Sherry was extremely excited the entire time – as were the kids.

Our last meal was at the Ocean Grill & Tiki Bar located in the Beachcomber Resort right near our rental in Pompano Beach. I feel like I should have more to say about the food at each of these places, but it honestly was mostly about the location each night. Sitting right by the water and ordering dessert for the kids was the most fun part. At this restaurant we got to eat beachside in an oversized tiki hut. This was literally the view from our table:

Honestly, a lot of the food blended together because most places had similar menus of seafood, salads, and burgers. We were just excited to find so many interesting dining experiences that were kid friendly. All of the places we mentioned above had kids menus (Beach House’s was verbal, so you had to ask the waiter to list everything) and none of them required any special dress code. We also ate more casual lunches at places like BurgerFi, Lunch Room, and Aruba Beach Cafe.

But one of our most memorable finds of the trip was this place, called… wait for it… Bean & Barnacle.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember that while Sherry was pregnant with our daughter, we referred to her as “Bean” and when she was pregnant with our son, he was dubbed “Barnacle” (by his sister, who was going through an Octonauts phase at the time). So to see that odd pairing of words emblazoned on a Florida coffee shop was such a funny surprise. We stopped in for gelato, and the interior was pretty cool too.

We’ve been home over a week now, and we’re all still mourning the fact that we’re not still in Florida on vacation. It seriously was one of the best trips we’ve taken as a family, and it makes us so eager to take another (and a lot less scared to fly with the kids). So I hope that sharing some of the details are helpful to anyone else who’s contemplating a trip there.

Speaking of which, here are some of our past vacation posts if you’re looking for more travel ideas:

Our Anniversary Trip To Puerto Rico

A Summer Vacation To Destin, Florida

Hawaii Part 1: How We Saved Money

Hawaii Part 2: What We Did 

The post Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet published first on https://aireloomreview.tumblr.com/

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Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet

Since our daughter started elementary school a few years ago, spring break has become an increasingly precious opportunity to get away, clock some quality family time, and soak in some long-overdue warm weather. Last year’s spring break vacation to Cape Canaveral, Florida checked all of the right boxes and we were tempted to just repeat that trip again this year. But we pushed ourselves to see if we could make this year’s getaway even better and explore a new part of Florida while we were at it – and we are SO GLAD WE DID. So for anyone else looking for a great family vacation spot or, like us, if you’re just ready to start dreaming about next year’s spring break – here’s a quick recap of our family’s trip to south Florida.

Where We Went: Why Fort Lauderdale?

Our #1 priority for the trip was “guaranteed beach weather,” and going to South Florida was the most convenient destination that could guarantee us hot temperatures in early April. We love a good road trip, but we wasted four days driving to Florida and back last year… so we decided to give flying a go this year (a first for us with both kids + the dog). A couple of airlines fly direct to Fort Lauderdale from our airport here in Richmond, VA, and we remembered Fort Lauderdale very fondly from our first book tour, so we figured anything within a 30-minute drive of that airport would be perfect. We actually ended up in a small area north of Fort Lauderdale called Pompano Beach and spent most of our time in nearby towns like Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Lighthouse Point (seen below), and Deerfield Beach, so we never actually stepped foot in Fort Lauderdale proper.

We haven’t flown as a family since our 2012 trip to Hawaii when our daughter was nearly 2 years old. Our hellish red-eye flight back to Virginia (there was lots of crying and zero sleeping) planted a deep-seeded fear of flying with children for several years, but now that she’s almost 8 and our son is 4, it felt like a 2-hour direct flight to Florida would be an easy way to dip our toes back into the family flight waters.

The flight went even better than expected. We flew Spirit Airlines (we’re infamously cheap travelers) and even though they nickel-and-dime you for everything from carry-on bags to in-flight water, it ended up being noticeably less expensive than our next best option, JetBlue. We were even able to bring Burger (our chihuahua) with us without any trouble. He flew to Alaska for our honeymoon, so he has proven himself to be a travel champ (yes, we brought our dog on our honeymoon, and yes we know how that sounds). See him there chilling at Sherry’s feet while she sports what she calls her “nervous travel face”?

A rental car was also a must on our list, so we got a minivan to ensure we’d have enough room for luggage, car seats, and beach gear. We bought car seats with us (we weren’t guaranteed that they’d have them since we were arriving really late at night) and thankfully, Spirit will check car seats and strollers for free (but not booster seats, surprisingly, so we stuffed it into our checked duffel bag). We talked a little bit more about juggling the dog, the dog crate, carseats, bags, and kids at an airport in podcast episode #92 if you’re curious how that went…

Where We Stayed: A Private Rental

Last year’s trip taught us the wonders of renting a house for spring break. Even though we could all pile into a hotel room, we’ve never regretted at least considering the option of not sharing walls with other vacationers (especially when we’ve got kids and a dog with us). Heck, sometimes a beach rental for the week actually breaks down to being cheaper than a hotel when you do the math to figure out the per-night cost. Last year our rental in Cape Canaveral was 1 of 3 units in a building, so we did have people above us and we all shared a communal pool. It ended up not being a problem (the other renters didn’t use the pool very much, so we had it mostly to ourselves) but this year we looked around online for a detached home with its own pool that was still within our budget, and thankfully we found this one.

We searched across Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway for pet-friendly rentals with a pool located within 30 minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport. We found this gem in Pompano Beach on HomeAway and we could not recommend it more highly. It. Was. Awesome. Not only did the kids love having the entire pool to splash around in, but Burger LOVED having free reign of the yard (last year he had to share a fenced area with another dog, and let’s just say they quickly became frenemies).

The interior furnishings are pretty much what you’d expect from a vacation rental (nothing that felt fancy or precious – which is AWESOME when you’re traveling with kids) and the beach wasn’t really within easy walking distance like the listing says, but the pool was PERFECT and the house and neighborhood were pleasantly very quiet and private. It just took us a few minutes to drive down to the beach and we always found parking (which was nice and cheap), so we really ended up loving everything about it.

The house was located in a small residential neighborhood on Terra Mar Island, a little island in the Intracoastal Waterway. This little bit of separation from the main thoroughfare helped it feel like a secluded and charming suburb – unlike all of the high-rise hotels and condos along the oceanfront. It felt nestled, private, and un-trafficed… even though it was close to everything.

The house itself was surrounded by tall thick foliage on all sides – making it feel like you had the whole island to yourself. We skipped the beach entirely for a couple of days because we were having so much fun just hanging out by the pool. And yes, Sherry has never been more convinced that we need a pool at our own house than after this vacation. #helpme

For any other families who might rent this place: they warned me ahead of time that they didn’t provide beach or pool toys (just chairs, towels, and a beach cart). We certainly weren’t going to bring buckets and shovels on the plane, so we planned to buy them at a dollar store once we got down there… but a previous renter had left a couple for us – along with a pool float and ball. We also picked up some beach toys and pool noodles at the CVS just down the street, all of which we left for future renters – so here’s hoping the cycle continues.

What We Did: Beach, Pool, And Eat

We are very chill vacationers and this spot was perfect for that. I know some families love to cram in tons of new activities and sightseeing on vacations, but our goal for this trip was just to unwind and be together, so we consciously avoided the pull to overschedule ourselves. Our kids love spending hours playing in the sand and making up games at the pool, so that’s pretty much all we did – breaking to eat lunch or dinner as needed (we had all of our breakfasts at the house, which was a nice way to save a little money).

The beach we drove to was at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea because it was close (about 5 minutes away) and super charming (see below!). Parking was extremely easy and affordable, and there were some restaurants and shops we could walk to from the beach. The beach always had people on it, but by no stretch would I call it crowded. We always got a spot that felt like it was ours and the kids could build in the sand and run in and out of the water without worrying they were splashing sand on other people and stuff like that. The water was the perfect temperature and “temperament” for us all to play in (read: not too rough, but enough waves to keep things interesting).

I’m sorry not to have more exciting recommendations for what to do, but our typical spring break agenda is usually: beach, pool, eat, nap, repeat. We did venture down to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk one day because it promised some new scenery, but a thunderstorm rolled in right as we arrived so we were rained out of actually enjoying it. The good news is  that by the time we drove home, it was done raining and the kids jumped right back into… you guessed it… the pool.

Where We Ate: Good Food With Good Views

I mentioned that we ate breakfast at home each morning, but we ate out for pretty much every other meal. You guys gave us some FANTASTIC recommendations on Instagram, which we now want to pay forward to anyone else who might be reading this and planning a trip, so thank you for helping to make our trip better than Yelp ever could have. Our first dinner was at a place in Pompano Beach called Beach House because, well, how could we not?

There was a little bit of a wait on a Tuesday night, but we just hung out on the beach until our table was ready. Whoever designed the restaurant outdid themselves (the woven lanterns swayed in the ocean breezes that blew through since the entire restaurant was open-air) and it was very kid friendly. We’re not really food critics, but I’ll say that we both enjoyed our meals a lot! I had ceviche and Sherry had some sort of “life-changing salad” that she couldn’t stop talking about for the rest of the trip.

The next night we tried a restaurant called Cap’s Place in nearby Lighthouse Point, which had been recommended to us because you have to take a (free) boat to get there! You park at this small dock in a town called Lighthouse Point, and this little watercraft picks you up and shuttles you about five minutes across a lake to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself has a really cool backstory: it was built on top of a beached barge and got its start nearly 100 years ago as a rum-running club and casino during the prohibition. They showed us a list of the famous people who’ve eaten there over the years, ranging from FDR to Paris Hilton, so the whole experience was super memorable. The building was dark and tough to photograph, and while the meal wasn’t our favorite of the trip, the whole boat-to-the-restaurant thing was the most fun meal-related experience we had on the entire trip. So we definitely recommend it!

We also headed back out to Lighthouse Point for another meal at a place called The Nauti Dawg Marina Cafe, which was right around the corner from Cap’s Place. The food was solid and we got to eat right along the marina, so the kids had fun watching boats come in and dock. There was a wait for this restaurant as well, but near the marina was this really colorful collection of townhouses that we walked around while we waited, keeping count of all of the lizards we could find sunbathing on people’s stoops. Our lizard-count got to over 50 (!!!) and as you can imagine, Sherry was extremely excited the entire time – as were the kids.

Our last meal was at the Ocean Grill & Tiki Bar located in the Beachcomber Resort right near our rental in Pompano Beach. I feel like I should have more to say about the food at each of these places, but it honestly was mostly about the location each night. Sitting right by the water and ordering dessert for the kids was the most fun part. At this restaurant we got to eat beachside in an oversized tiki hut. This was literally the view from our table:

Honestly, a lot of the food blended together because most places had similar menus of seafood, salads, and burgers. We were just excited to find so many interesting dining experiences that were kid friendly. All of the places we mentioned above had kid menus (Beach House’s was verbal, so you had to ask the waiter to list everything) and none of them required any special dress code. We also ate more casual lunches at places like BurgerFi, Lunch Room, and Aruba Beach Cafe.

One of our most memorable finds of the trip was this place, called… wait for it… Bean & Barnacle.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember that while Sherry was pregnant with our daughter, we referred to her as “Bean” and when she was pregnant with our son, he was dubbed “Barnacle” (by his sister, who was going through an Octonauts phase at the time). So to see that odd pairing of words emblazoned on a Florida coffee shop was such a funny surprise. We stopped in for gelato, and the interior was pretty cool too.

We’ve been home over a week now, and we’re all still mourning the fact that we’re not still in Florida on vacation. It seriously was one of the best trips we’ve taken as a family, and it makes us so eager to take another (and a lot less scared to fly with the kids). So I hope that sharing some of the details are helpful to anyone else who’s contemplating a trip there.

Speaking of which, here are some of our past vacation posts if you’re looking for more travel ideas:

Our Anniversary Trip To Puerto Rico

A Summer Vacation To Destin, Florida

Hawaii Part 1: How We Saved Money

Hawaii Part 2: What We Did 

The post Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

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Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet

Since our daughter started elementary school a few years ago, spring break has become an increasingly precious opportunity to get away, clock some quality family time, and soak in some long-overdue warm weather. Last year’s spring break vacation to Cape Canaveral, Florida checked all of the right boxes and we were tempted to just repeat that trip again this year. But we pushed ourselves to see if we could make this year’s getaway even better and explore a new part of Florida while we were at it – and we are SO GLAD WE DID. So for anyone else looking for a great family vacation spot or, like us, if you’re just ready to start dreaming about next year’s spring break – here’s a quick recap of our family’s trip to South Florida.

Where We Went

Our #1 priority for the trip was “guaranteed beach weather,” and going to South Florida was the most convenient destination that could guarantee us hot temperatures in early April. We love a good road trip, but we wasted four days driving to Florida and back last year… so we decided to give flying a go this year (a first for us with both kids + the dog). A couple of airlines fly direct to Fort Lauderdale from our airport here in Richmond, VA, and we remembered Fort Lauderdale very fondly from our first book tour, so we figured anything within a 30-minute drive of that airport would be perfect. We actually ended up in a small area north of Fort Lauderdale called Pompano Beach and spent most of our time in nearby towns like Lauderdale-By-The-Sea, Lighthouse Point (seen below), and Deerfield Beach, so we never actually stepped foot in Fort Lauderdale proper.

We haven’t flown as a family since our 2012 trip to Hawaii when our daughter was nearly 2 years old. Our hellish red-eye flight back to Virginia (there was lots of crying and zero sleeping) planted a deep-seeded fear of flying with children for several years, but now that she’s almost 8 and our son is 4, it felt like a 2-hour direct flight to Florida would be an easy way to dip our toes back into the family flight waters.

The flight went even better than expected. We flew Spirit Airlines (we’re infamously cheap travelers) and even though they nickel-and-dime you for everything from carry-on bags to in-flight water, it ended up being noticeably less expensive than our next best option, JetBlue. We were even able to bring Burger (our chihuahua) with us without any trouble. He flew to Alaska for our honeymoon, so he has proven himself to be a travel champ (yes, we brought our dog on our honeymoon, and yes we know how that sounds). See him there chilling at Sherry’s feet while she sports what she calls her “nervous travel face”?

A rental car was also a must on our list, so we got a minivan to ensure we’d have enough room for luggage, car seats, and beach gear. We bought car seats with us (we weren’t guaranteed that the rental place would have them since we were arriving really late at night) and thankfully Spirit will check car seats and strollers for free. We talked a little bit more about juggling the dog, the dog crate, carseats, bags, and kids at an airport in podcast episode #92 if you’re curious how that went…

Where We Stayed: A Private Rental

Last year’s trip taught us the wonders of renting a house for spring break. Even though we could all pile into a hotel room, we’ve never regretted at least considering the option of not sharing walls with other vacationers (especially when we’ve got kids and a dog with us). Heck, sometimes a beach rental for the week actually breaks down to being cheaper than a hotel when you do the math to figure out the per-night cost. Last year our rental in Cape Canaveral was 1 of 3 units in a building, so we did have people above us and we all shared a communal pool. It ended up not being a problem (the other renters didn’t use the pool very much, so we had it mostly to ourselves) but this year we looked around online for a detached home with its own pool that was still within our budget, and thankfully we found this one.

We searched across Airbnb, VRBO, and HomeAway for pet-friendly rentals with a pool located within 30 minutes of the Fort Lauderdale airport. We found this gem in Pompano Beach on HomeAway and we could not recommend it more highly. It. Was. Awesome. Not only did the kids love having the entire pool to splash around in, but Burger LOVED having free reign of the yard (last year he had to share a fenced area with another dog, and let’s just say they quickly became frenemies).

The interior furnishings are pretty much what you’d expect from a vacation rental (nothing that felt fancy or precious – which is AWESOME when you’re traveling with kids) and the beach wasn’t really within easy walking distance like the listing says, but the pool was PERFECT and the house and neighborhood were pleasantly very quiet and private. It just took us a few minutes to drive down to the beach and we always found parking (which was nice and cheap), so we really ended up loving everything about it.

The house was located in a small residential neighborhood on Terra Mar Island, a little island in the Intracoastal Waterway. This little bit of separation from the main thoroughfare helped it feel like a secluded and charming suburb – unlike all of the high-rise hotels and condos along the oceanfront. It felt nestled, private, and un-trafficed… even though it was close to everything.

The house itself was surrounded by tall thick foliage on all sides – making it feel like you had the whole island to yourself. We skipped the beach entirely for a couple of days because we were having so much fun just hanging out by the pool. And yes, Sherry has never been more convinced that we need a pool at our own house than after this vacation. #helpme

For any other families who might rent this place: they warned me ahead of time that they didn’t provide beach or pool toys (just chairs, towels, and a beach cart). We certainly weren’t going to bring buckets and shovels on the plane, so we planned to buy them at a dollar store once we got down there… but a previous renter had left a couple for us – along with a pool float and ball. We also picked up some beach toys and pool noodles at the CVS just down the street, all of which we left for future renters – so here’s hoping the cycle continues.

What We Did: Beach, Pool, And Eat

We are very chill vacationers and this spot was perfect for that. I know some families love to cram in tons of new activities and sightseeing on vacations, but our goal for this trip was just to unwind and be together, so we consciously avoided the pull to overschedule ourselves. Our kids love spending hours playing in the sand and making up games at the pool, so that’s pretty much all we did – breaking to eat lunch or dinner as needed (we had all of our breakfasts at the house, which was a nice way to save a little money).

The beach we drove to was at Lauderdale-By-The-Sea because it was close (about 5 minutes away) and super charming (see below!). Parking was extremely easy and affordable, and there were some restaurants and shops we could walk to from the beach. The beach always had people on it, but by no stretch would I call it crowded. We always got a spot that felt like it was ours and the kids could build in the sand and run in and out of the water without worrying they were splashing sand on other people and stuff like that. The water was the perfect temperature and “temperament” for us all to play in (read: not too rough, but enough waves to keep things interesting).

I’m sorry not to have more exciting recommendations for what to do, but our typical spring break agenda is usually: beach, pool, eat, nap, repeat. We did venture down to the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk one day because it promised some new scenery, but a thunderstorm rolled in right as we arrived so we were rained out of actually enjoying it. The good news is  that by the time we drove home, it was done raining and the kids jumped right back into… you guessed it… the pool.

Where We Ate: Good Food With Good Views

I mentioned that we ate breakfast at home each morning, but we ate out for pretty much every other meal. You guys gave us some FANTASTIC recommendations on Instagram, which we now want to pay forward to anyone else who might be reading this and planning a trip, so thank you for helping to make our trip better than Yelp ever could have. Our first dinner was at a place in Pompano Beach called Beach House because, well, how could we not?

There was a little bit of a wait on a Tuesday night, but we just hung out on the beach until our table was ready. Whoever designed the restaurant outdid themselves (the woven lanterns swayed in the ocean breezes that blew through since the entire restaurant was open-air) and it was very kid friendly. We’re not really food critics, but I’ll say that we both enjoyed our meals a lot! I had ceviche and Sherry had some sort of “life-changing salad” that she couldn’t stop talking about for the rest of the trip.

The next night we tried a restaurant called Cap’s Place in nearby Lighthouse Point, which had been recommended to us because you have to take a (free) boat to get there! You park at this small dock in a town called Lighthouse Point, and this little watercraft picks you up and shuttles you about five minutes across a lake to the restaurant.

The restaurant itself has a really cool backstory: it was built on top of a beached barge and got its start nearly 100 years ago as a rum-running club and casino during the prohibition. They showed us a list of the famous people who’ve eaten there over the years, ranging from FDR to Paris Hilton, so the whole experience was quirky and super memorable. The building was dark and tough to photograph, and while the meal wasn’t our favorite of the trip, the whole boat-to-the-restaurant thing was the most fun meal-related experience we had on the entire trip. So we definitely recommend it!

We also headed back out to Lighthouse Point for another meal at a place called The Nauti Dawg Marina Cafe, which was right around the corner from Cap’s Place. The food was solid and we got to eat right along the marina, so the kids had fun watching boats come in and dock. There was a wait for this restaurant as well, but near the marina was this really colorful collection of townhouses that we walked around while we waited, keeping count of all of the lizards we could find sunbathing on people’s stoops. Our lizard-count got to over 50 (!!!) and as you can imagine, Sherry was extremely excited the entire time – as were the kids.

Our last meal was at the Ocean Grill & Tiki Bar located in the Beachcomber Resort right near our rental in Pompano Beach. I feel like I should have more to say about the food at each of these places, but it honestly was mostly about the location each night. Sitting right by the water and ordering dessert for the kids was the most fun part. At this restaurant we got to eat beachside in an oversized tiki hut. This was literally the view from our table:

Honestly, a lot of the food blended together because most places had similar menus of seafood, salads, and burgers. We were just excited to find so many interesting dining experiences that were kid friendly. All of the places we mentioned above had kids menus (Beach House’s was verbal, so you had to ask the waiter to list everything) and none of them required any special dress code. We also ate more casual lunches at places like BurgerFi, Lunch Room, and Aruba Beach Cafe.

One of our most memorable finds of the trip was this place, called… wait for it… Bean & Barnacle.

For those who have followed our blog for a while, you may remember that while Sherry was pregnant with our daughter, we referred to her as “Bean” and when she was pregnant with our son, he was dubbed “Barnacle” (by his sister, who was going through an Octonauts phase at the time). So to see that odd pairing of words emblazoned on a Florida coffee shop was such a funny surprise. We stopped in for gelato, and the interior was pretty cool too.

We’ve been home over a week now, and we’re all still mourning the fact that we’re not still in Florida on vacation. It seriously was one of the best trips we’ve taken as a family, and it makes us so eager to take another (and a lot less scared to fly with the kids). So I hope that sharing some of the details are helpful to anyone else who’s contemplating a trip there.

Speaking of which, here are some of our past vacation posts if you’re looking for more travel ideas:

Our Anniversary Trip To Puerto Rico

A Summer Vacation To Destin, Florida

Hawaii Part 1: How We Saved Money

Hawaii Part 2: What We Did 

The post Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet appeared first on Young House Love.

Our Family’s Favorite Spring Break Yet published first on https://aireloomreview.tumblr.com/