Frugal Fashion & Furnishings: Beach Bummin' 2014

Before we made our big move, our friends, the Mertz's, suggested we take a vacation together and hit the beach. We are so glad we joined them! We stayed in a hotel suite, and split the cost. It worked out great! It was a really affordable and fun break.

I'm going to get real here, though. Roadtrips with babies aren't always for the faint of heart. On our way to California, it was baaaad. As in, 3 hours in, I told Brett to turn around and go home, because this just wasn't worth it. Vivienne screamed for over 2 solid hours. Not fussed, whined, or whimpered--full fledged screaming. We stopped 3 times in that time frame for me to hold her, soothe her, feed her, change her, etc. I was sitting in the back seat this whole time, and still, couldn't calm her. At one point, Landon, Vivienne and I were all crying in the back seat. It wasn't my finest moment. Finally, in a moment of total desperation, I turned on Pandora, to a lullaby station, and it was like magic. She sat listening so concentrated and then after a while drifted off to sleep. I think I will be buying this pronto.

Thankfully, the trip home went much smoother. We stopped once for gas and for all to eat, and eeked out enough good behavior out of those kids the rest of the way home. I mean, I was singing overly-enthusiastic songs of the "itsy-bitsy spider" and what-not for the last hour, to keep them distracted. But Brett typically prefers my obnoxious singing to children screaming, so it works out.

Also, we were thankful for toes and stickers, which occupied much of Landon's time while he was carseat-bound. And we discovered Vivienne also loves books, so I held a board book in front of her face the last hour and turned the page every minute or so, to give her something new to look at (I didn't read it aloud to her, since I was enthusiastically singing!).

Enough talk about the travelling, once we were there, it was great!

We stayed up late hanging out with James and Jenessa laughing our heads off at stupid lists on BuzzFeed.

We hit the beach one day, and it turns out, the beach is my children's "happy place".

We recently got this foldable wagon, and it was a lifesaver for the weekend! Doesn't take up too much trunk space, heavy duty wheels, and really roomy. We loaded Landon and all of our beach gear into it, to walk to the beach. Then, while at the beach, we laid a towel down in it, and used it as a bassinet for Vivienne. She took two of the longest naps of her whole life while in the wagon (I'm sure the ocean noise helped her too, she needs white noise to sleep for long periods of time during the day, I discovered). Landon just needed a few snacks, and a few beach toys from the dollar store--and he was in heaven. Seriously loved the beach.