hello titus: Key Biscayne

Earlier in the summer, Jenn came up with this crazy idea that we have a girls week at her beach house in Key Biscayne with her, me and Val and all our kids at the end of summer/beginning of fall. Val and I started talking more seriously about it and since we were moving, we sort of started planning our trip. Valerie ended up having to change her plans, but Jenn assured me that I was still invited and we should make the most of it despite it not being exactly what we had planned. So we set our dates for the beginning of September!

Once we got to South Carolina we had about a week before I hit the road to Florida! Morgan decided since it was Jenn's last trip to her family Key house, he really wanted to go, so he took work off and came too. I was so sad that Josh couldn't come (dumb work), but it still such a fabulous trip.

I really can't remember the details of what happened on what days, but I'll do my best to remember everything we did.

To get the most of our trip, we decided to drive through the night to get there. Morgan drove the whole way (bless him) so we all slept and got there refreshed and ready for the day! Morgan napped until noon or so and Jenn and I hit the beach with the kids first thing that morning. We spent the morning at the beach and even packed lunches. The beach was GORGEOUS. The weather was perfect and warm and the water was beautiful.

Jenn and I spent one evening on a bike ride. We put the kids down (except Piper who refused to go to bed) and left Morgan with them while we rode around the island. It was amazing. The island is small, so you can really ride around most of the island in a very short amount of time. We drove around and looked at all the giant mansions and imagined what it would be like to live there. Seriously, the houses there are worth millions and millions of dollars. It's pretty incredible.

We spent most of our days hitting up the beach in the morning, with our packed lunches, umbrellas, chairs and towels. We would lather the kids up and just play all morning. Jenn and I would take the babies out into the water when they got tired and bounce them to sleep. Piper slept amazingly at the beach. She took 1-2 hour naps every time we were at the beach. Such a sweet baby.

Morgan and Jenn brought snorkeling gear so we spent some time out in the seaweed and sandbars searching for stuff. Jenn found a sea biscuit and a conch shell and I found a bunch of tiny shells with little creatures in them. We saw lots of fish and couple sting rays. We even saw a couple jelly fish. It's always eery seeing a sting ray swim right under you and realize that there are all sorts of creatures swimming all around you in the ocean. Shudder. But, it was a blast.

We brought food for meals and did a small trip to the grocery store on the key too. We went out to eat our last night to a little local pizza place. It was yummy.

We did a couple bike rides all together with the kids in the trailers too. We did one to the old abandoned zoo and rode around the park on that side of the island. It was really neat and we saw all kinds of birds and lizards. We also saw a million giant banana spiders up in the trees. So creepy. On our last day, we did another big bike ride around the neighborhood and just looked at houses. I love bike rides.

One day we decided it would be fun to rent something for the water. We decided to rent a paddle board. It was a lot of fun. We just rented it for an hour and we took turns paddling around on it. It was hard to go against the current. I kept getting turned around and pulled downstream. But we got the hang of it eventually. :)

Most the nights we were there, Jenn made cookies and we ate cookies while we played board games. I love playing board games with Morgan and Jenn. And we played some great ones I don't get to play normally, so it was a blast.

Overall, our trip was incredible. We did so much and spent so much time on the beach. It was incredible. The forecast called for rain almost the entire week but I think I only saw rain once and it was during the night and in the early morning. We had such a blast and I'm so glad I got the chance to go to Jenn's Key house before they sold it. I know it was a hard trip for Jenn, saying goodbye to so many childhood memories and I'm so glad she let me be a part of her last trip!