Vacation Day 5- Friday

Beach Day- one of the best days EVER!! (hence the 3,001 pictures)

The beach day. It was finally here. Was I more excited or the kids?? I laid in our bed with the glass patio door slid over as far as it would possibly go. The ocean breeze and sunshine wafted into my room. The kids were wrestling on the bed in the adjoining room. So for a few minutes I felt like I was in heaven. We ate breakfast in our room and headed out.
 It was like 10 by the time we walked out on the sand. So it had gotten a little warmer and it was so so so very lovely. The kids played with their new giant shovels in the sand for a long time.

Ethan loved the rivers in the sand that led to the water. He splashed and played in the little tidal pools.

 

Katie was a step behind Coleson running for the water. Being smaller, it knocked her down more, but she didn't care. The water was by no means warm (it was January), but the air was warm and after a little while in the water your legs went numb so you couldn't tell how cold it was anyway. Kinda :) Coleson was in love with the waves. Hunter was in love with the sand. So fitting for their personalities. We had so much fun. After a while, Jared decided to rent some of these sand bikes that people had been riding up and down the beach. And they were cheap enough too. It was like $10 for an hour. So Hunter and daddy took the first 1/2 hour and rode so far down the beach we couldn't see them anymore. Then Coleson and I took the second 1/2 hour and raced each other and it was SO fun! Afterward we hopped back and forth between the ocean and the hotel pool and hot tub while Jared took Ethan to the room for a nap. He was right above the pool and we kept waving up to him.  Everyone was just so extremely happy all day long.  It was like the kids knew this was a once in a great while kind of opportunity, and there was no sense ruining it with temper tantrums or time outs.  Everyone was just happy the whole day.  And it was perfect.

Ethan found these puddles and had SO much fun splashing.

Katie & Coleson head for the waves.

The waves take Katie down, but she doesn't care.

Daddy will help her.

Hunter finally notices the water.

Hunter- "These waves won't knock ME down!"

While he was up there he made some phone calls and made a dinner reservation for us at a really nice 4 star restaurant at the hotel. So after Ethan got up we all got dressed up and went to dinner. We had a pep talk with the kids as we walked to dinner. The white table clothes should've been a red flag to us, but we went for it anyway. Right from the get-go they assigned 2 servers to us. Score! So we got awesome service. And the food was delicious. It was the first of many $150 meals on this vacation. Like I said, we'd been saving our money from the previous days and were thrilled to have some days we could splurge. And our Disney food was already paid for. After dinner we enjoyed another beach walk. 

We put Katie and Ethan to bed while Coleson and Hunter watched a movie on the iPad and Jared and I whisper talked. We were waiting for midnight. Our room looked out right over the pier that was doing the New Years' Eve fireworks for that strip of beach. I know, how lucky was that?!? It was one of the coolest things ever to be laying in our hotel room right across from the fireworks going off at midnight. And since our room was so far up, we were literally parallel to the fireworks. The boys lay in their sleeping bags (we were down to 1 room that night) with their faces against the glass. It was the best New Year's Eve ever.
 

Hilton Daytona Beach Resort/Ocean Walk Village

100 North Atlantic Avenue, Daytona Beach, Florida, United States 32118