Exploring on Our Family Vacation in Florida

~ Family Vacation Recap | Wanderlust | Personal ~

Santee, South Carolina | Sarasota/Siesta Key, Florida | Sebastian/Vero Beach, Florida | May 6-14, 2022

We came back from this vacation as different people. Arielle came back with a TON of new words in her vocabulary and knowing where her Nose, Eyes, and Ears are (thanks to Aunt Reenie & big cousin Chey). And Michael and I came back with a new lease on life, we always seem to have personal and marital growth while we are on vacation. But, not without few bumps in the road this trip (literally and metaphorically). But that’s what makes it an adventure! …Right? I brought my camera and took photos on my phone. I merged the two and put the highlights and the favorites on here to share with y’all!

In normal McHugh fashion things never go according to plan….
We were set to leave early Friday morning, around 2am. But, Michael was on call for work and he didn’t realize until the week of that he wasn’t “off call” until 6AM when his company opened. No biggie he had an online class he had to finish too so, we decided to just leave around 10 am when his online class was over and we will take a different route down and make it a fun road trip and meet up with a friend in Georgia and then crash at a hotel in GA for the night. Well, just our luck, one of the stores submitted a call late Thursday night and he had to run the call Friday morning. So, we scraped that plan. And decided to just hit the road as soon as he got home from work, we ultimately hit the road around 2pm.

Everything was going smooth on the road until Michael and I made the decision to stop driving for the night and get rest for a few hours, let Arielle run around and get her out of the car seat. We were in South Carolina and every hotel we were pulling off the highway too was SLAM PACKED…. no vacancy. We asked “What’s going on?” …. NASCAR. Because of the Nascar race hotels from Lumberton, NC to the GA line hotels off the highway were booked. Our last Florida trip, we stayed at a small hotel in Santee. We called them. They had 1 room left; smoking, 2 queens. We took what we could get, and we slept so well we slept thru our 3 AM alarm to hit the road again. Leaving at 7 AM we were back on the road to Florida.

We decided to visit my uncle, aunt & grandma in Sarasota first so we could celebrate mothers day with them. We arrived on Saturday and enjoyed swimming in the pool at their house. We had a nice low key evening and went for a lovely walk at night. On Sunday (Mothers Day), Michael, Arielle and I got up with the sun and went to Siesta Key beach. We attempted to build sandcastles, played in the waves, and had the best time relaxing and playing on the beach. After the beach, we walked over to Gilliagans Island for a light brunch and I needed a Mermaid Water (a signature cocktail there). We also did a little shopping and went back to the house. Arielle got back in the pool and then we went out to eat at my aunts favorite restaurant, Oak & Stone for dinner. It had a lovely view of a canal with lots of big fancy yachts and gorgeous sunset view.

Monday afternoon, after having a nice breakfast with my aunt and grandma; we headed to the east coast of Florida to visit Michael’s sister Christine. We pulled in Monday afternoon, had lunch and went bowling for a little bit at Strike Zone. After that we went to Christine & Nate’s and had a low key evening at her house. Tuesday morning, we went to the Sebastian Inlet with Christine, our niece Cheyenne and Christine’s Mother in Law, Debbie. Arielle LOVED the water, but was not a big fan of the sand this time. Towards the end, the wind kept blowing and she also kept rubbing her eyes. Poor baby. After the inlet we drove through a nature preserve and saw deer, birds, cows, and even a cougar (but didn’t get a photo of that).

On Wednesday, we headed out to the Brevard Zoo. Arielle was enamored with all the animals, but especially the giraffes because she got to feed one. She also loved the zoofari train to see all the animals up close. We love animals, and zoos are the best chance for us to practice wildlife photography. Michael and I passed the camera (and Arielle) back and fourth because we both enjoyed taking pictures of these animal friends! We are a little salty that the only Florida Gator we saw, was in a zoo, but still super cool! They had a few babies their, including a baby monkey (scroll for cute photos)! And this zoo also has a little kiddie pool for the kids! Sadly, Arielle had fallen asleep by the time we came across it.

The struggles of long term breastfeeding…. a sore back and a foot in your face.

After the zoo, we drove around to Downtown Melbourne and Melbourne beach so Arielle could get a good nap in. There was a splash pad near the Sebastian River at a park. We stopped there, and at first Arielle was cold and not a fan. But, the sun came out a little more and then she didn’t want to leave.

We also stopped at an ocean overlook at a nature center. We want to go back to the Nature Center during Turtle season. They do walks to help ensure the sea turtles laying eggs have safe travels and nests are roped off. And that sounds like something up our alley and would LOVE to do that next season.

Thursday, we woke up at the crack of dawn to go to Wabasso Beach to see the sunrise. Due to the crazy winds and storms off the coast, there was a huge drop off at the beach. We couldn’t get too close to the ocean this time. After catching the sunrise we headed to the Jungle Trail to see what animals would be out looking for food. Plus its a beautiful, scenic, and quiet drive. Once through the Jungle Trail we went to breakfast at Mulligan’s Beach House and it was DELISH!!!! Plus we were basically eating breakfast on the beach. We could hear the ocean, the sand was steps away, the sun was warm and the breeze felt amazing. After breakfast, we took Arielle to Gifford Pool in Vero Beach to hang out for the day. We were lucky in our timing that all the big kids were in school so the only ones at the pool was the elderly getting their water aerobics on and all the little babies for swim lessons with their mamas. They have slides, a beach style pool so Arielle could play in decently shallow water to a point before it was a lap pool, and a huge splash pad. Arielle was living it up there and was full on “Fabulous” from High School Musical poolside. After the pool we drove up to Cocoa Beach to go to the Ron Jons up there, a MUST STOP for us.

Thursday was our last full day in Florida. After getting cleaned up, we went to our favorite local spot for dinner, Tiki Bar & Grill with Christine and Debbie. Arielle was the LIFE of the party. It was karaoke night for the local remaining snow birds and Arielle wanted to dance to all of their songs and say “Hi” to everyone on the way back to the table. Michael, Arielle and I went for a walk next to the Sebastian River after dinner, just the three of us. It was so quiet. We are simple people. We like to sit and enjoy nature. We discussed our future together and what was coming next for our family and in business/career wise. We were so caught up talking, we didn’t realize that Arielle had gotten quiet for a while. She passed OUT in her stroller. We quickly walked back to our jeep and went back to Christine’s to bed.

We left Friday morning around 10 am. We had 1 stop on the list before leaving Florida…Buc-ee’s in Daytona. If you don’t know what a Buc-ee’s is, think Wawa/Sheetz meets, country store super center, meets gas station. It’s incredible honestly, its a MUST STOP on our way home (so we have something to look forward to on the way home – parent hack) to make it a little less bitter sweet leaving. We made arrangements ahead of time this time to stop on the way home. We decided to stay at the same place we did on the way down, but what we didn’t think about was…. we were traveling home on Friday the 13th. Mercury was also in retrograde and that made for QUITE the interesting ride home….

We just crossed the SC/GA line and something smelled BAAAD. We thought maybe it was the truck in-front of us because it was towing a boat with a bunch of fishing equipment on it. It wasn’t the truck. We kept driving and we passed a swap….WE SAW A WILD GATOR… but was not the smell. Then it dawned on me it could be Arielle’s diaper. I looked back and my heart SANK. She was smiling covered in poop. She played in her diaper!!!! YUUUUCKK!!! We quickly pulled off the nearest exit (3 miles up the road) to a Flying J so we could fix this nightmare situation. I took Arielle inside. She got a bath in the sink and got put in a clean diaper and outfit. I washed up as well while Michael cleaned up her seat and then cleaned up too. I pulled out of the parking spot and on to the highway ramp and all of the sudden my tire pressure light comes on. My heart sank AGAIN – “Do we have a flat?” I asked with one eye open as Michael, in the dark on the side of 95 with his phone flash light trying to see if there was a nail in the tire. He couldn’t find anything. So, we kept driving up the road to the hotel in Santee. We should have realized bad things come in 3s and that it wasn’t over, but we went to sleep. The next morning, while loading the Jeep to leave, Michael walked through a Fire Ant hill. And they bit his feet and legs all up.
But, despite all of that, we had a really great vacation and we really cannot wait to go back to Florida, whenever that may be. Here’s the last bunch of photos: