Family Beach Weekend.

We’ve just returned home from a long weekend vacation at the TradeWinds Resort on St. Pete Beach, here in Florida. It’s about a half hour drive from our house to this beautiful beach. I highly recommend this resort for families, it is super kid friendly with lots of things for the littles to do. We ate all kinds of yummy food, took early morning walks on the beach, viewed beautiful sunsets, swam like fishes, danced at a pirate party, took naps, rode around in paddle boats, fed swans, hunted for seashells, and had some good quality family time without any of the usual distractions. Three days off from cooking & house cleaning was just was this Mama needed to recharge her batteries.

Modern Mommy House Tour: The Florida Room

Our house was built by my Grandmother in 1959. She raised my mother and her siblings here, then my parents raised my sister and I here. Now, I am raising my girls here, and I feel so lucky to live in a house with 50+ years of family history in it.

Living in Florida, a lot of the homes included a bonus room called a Florida Room. Typically these were more like patios without a/c and lots of windows. When my parents bought the house, they removed the sliding glass doors, and added air conditioning, making it a more livable part of the home.

We spend the most time is this room of our home. We watch movies, read books, snuggle, and have dance parties with the girls here. The room is a good mix of vintage and new, as is most of our house. The couch and large chair are from Rooms To Go, the coffee table is from West Elm, the magazine rack, ceramics, planter, “tv stand” children’s chairs, and bird cage are all vintage. This room is pretty much done, although I am still looking for new throw pillows,and would like a new blind for the french door. When the kids are older, we’ll invest in a rug.

Hello, 2012.

I hope everyone is off to a fun start this year! We spent yesterday being lazy, taking naps, and ordering take-out, although we did manage to take down the xmas decorations. I knew that we needed to get outside today, since tomorrow will bring our coldest weather of the season, a high in the 50’s with a low in the 30’s. Brrrr, this is super cold for west central Florida! We are lucky enough to live close to the beach, so we took the girls to their favorite beach spot, the playground.

The Ceremony

The ceremony was my favorite part of our wedding celebration. The reception was amazing, but the ceremony was perfection. I was relaxed and in the moment, and I felt so much love in the room from our family & friends. We had beautiful Florida fall weather, and the light streaming into the tiny historical chapel we were married in was so pretty. Pure joy!

If you missed the wedding portraits I posted last week, you can see them here.

We took the girls down to the beach this evening so we could see a much talked about sand sculpture that was done to promote our city, and the new movie Dolphin Tale, which was filmed here in Clearwater, Florida. I’m not sure which was more amazing, the sculpture, or tonight’s sunset. 

Our Florida Room Makeover

I blogged a few weeks ago about our family room redo. I am excited to say that the room is finished, and we couldn’t be happier with the results. It’s amazing what a coat of paint & new window treatments can do for a room! We still need new throw pillows, I borrowed the orange ones from our front living room, and I think yellow pillows will be the best bet.

I didn’t take any before pictures, but you can see the red paint & old vertical blinds we had in this recent photo of Mags.

4th of July Weekend {Part 1}

We only have about a ten minute drive to beautiful Clearwater Beach. We are lucky to live so close to the Gulf of Mexico. We packed up the girls and took them there this morning for a little fun in the sun. I managed to take a few photos between chasing Maggie around the beach, and floating in the ocean.

We are headed to a BBQ later today with friends & family, and we have plans to take the girls to see fireworks tomorrow night. I am enjoying every minute of this beautiful long weekend, and I hope you’re doing the same!