Our July 4th Work-ation

Sparklers, fireworks, vacation on the beach?! Sounded good to us, but not quite what our July 4th weekend turned out to be. As many of you may know, Justin and I bought a little one bedroom condo this year down in Ft. Pierce Florida. Justin has grown up going there since he was a little boy, and was ecstatic when he found an incredible deal on a foreclosed condo in the same development!

We have had a guy doing a lot of remodeling work for us down there, so the idea was that this trip would entail stocking the condo with everything it would need to be livable and rentable, cleaning, some painting, and then voila, relaxing at the pool and beach.

Needless to say, we underestimated our ability to get things done a bit, so our vacation turned more into a work-ation. But, we still had a blast putting all our sweet and blood into getting our condo looking great. Many, many trips to Home Depot and Walmart and lots of hours with a paint brush, and by midnight before we left if was looking like the condo we’d hoped for.

What did Tristan do this whole time while mom and dad worked like crazy? Just see the pics below, he was an angel baby boy. Played and played in all kinds of unusual places.

In the pack-n-play

(we bought one to keep down there by the way if you are renting and need one)

In the suitcase!!! This was a favorite, lots of cool stuff to mess with in there.

lots of time on a towel, on the floor, baracaded with massive pillow

Sweet boy, he loved the tile, he’d get a kick out of feeling the cool floor and slapping it with his hand to make a cool noise. Thank you for being flexible love! And sadly this was about as fun as it got for him on July 4th, note the stripes shirt. Justin and I brought blue shirts for a family picture that never happened…there’s always next year!

I was able to sneak him to the pool for about an hour and he absolutely LOVES the pool! Loves to splash and kick. Justin also got to sneak him away for some time at the pool before they got rained out. Here he is all sun-screened up and ready to go!And then together we took a family trip to the beach for a whopping total of 30 minutes. It all started out great, we were all excited for Tristan’s first glimpse of the ocean! Here they are loving the view from afar…let’s go see it closer up! It starts off innocent, fun hanging with dad, look at the water… Then that scary water up and jumped right into Tristan’s lap…how dare it! The scene that quickly followed…

So funny…he was terrified of those big scary waves! He would clutch on to me for his life, turn and look at the water, then turn away and clutch harder! So maybe you don’t love the beach yet buddy, but just give it time. Maybe we’ll just decide the pool is a safer bet, huh? Here’s to trying again next time!

But I think the work-ation paid off. Here are some pics of our finished (for now) product. Justin and I are so thankful for this place and excited and looking forward to lots of family holidays and vacations there. Oh, and if you’re interested in renting our little home away from home, go check out our website at: http://www.oceanvillagerental.com/ Here are some pics of all our hard work:

This is the back of our condo, we’re the one of the bottom right.

Please, step inside our back porch…the living room and kitchen

The bedroomOf course Justin had to buy a flat screen tv for the bedroom, and one for the living room! I admit, it was nice to relax after a long day of working to some tv in bed! The bathroom (it’s so hard to take a pic of this, the condo actually has two vanities, one in the bathroom, and another at the end of the hallway with pretty white mirrors. Sadly didn’t get a pic of that. Thank you Tyler for some awesome tile-work in the shower too!

And save the best for last…the view out the back of our screened-in porch, to the left… straight out the back, the beach is just over the dune straight ahead…

and to the right, on the 8th hole.

That’s all folks…happy 4th of July! Saving our sparklers for next year!