What am I doing posting about the beach during the first week of Fall!? Well, when you’re a mom of an on-the-go baby girl, sorting through and editing photos from a week-long vacation kind of gets put on the back burner. I finally found some time to sit down and go through the oodles of pictures we snapped of our family and Annie while in Florida. So today I’m sharing a peek into our trip to the Gulf Coast! But let’s be honest, these are mostly just adorable pictures of Annie frolicking around on the beach. And I can’t help myself!!
We headed down south with all of Patrick’s family to spend a week away from it all, on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. We stayed in the little town of Port St. Joe for the first time. We usually spend our beach weeks on 30A so this was quite the change, albeit a great one! Port St. Joe felt so much more remote. We had the entire beach outside of our rental house all to ourselves every single day. There wasn’t even cell phone service! Which was scary to us all at first, but then it kept us off our phones even more than usual, which isn’t that really the point of a vacation?
Can’t beat a view from your porch like this one!
It was Annie’s first trip to the beach (aside from an afternoon visit to Galveston months prior… where she slept through the whole thing lol!) I had been looking forward to dressing her up in little swimsuits and beach bonnets for months & months. I also couldn’t wait to see her face when her toes hit the sand and the waves lapped over her itty bitty feet. Definitely an experience I will cherish forever!
PS: This floral suit of mine is from Albion Fit!
Can I just insert all the heart eyes in the world for how much I love this photo!?! My heart is just melting as I type this.
Annie was extremely interested in the water and the waves. Curious if she is going to love to swim just as much as I did as a kid!
Now is as good as a time of any for some swimsuit ramblings. Since I had a baby this year, I definitely hopped on the one-piece bathing suit train. There are so many flattering styles these days for absolutely ANY body type. My favorites just happen to be the off-the-shoulder one pieces linked below.
This green suit is one of my favoriftes and it also has major bonus points. Because funnily enough, I found a suit for Annie to match (totally unintended) and a matching topknot hat too! (Also totally unintended … but I can’t help but love it.) Her little topknot hat reminds me of some of those fabulous 1960s movies and I get a kick out of it everytime she wears it.
Annie getting all the smooches from her Aunt Caroline! We had such an amazing time with all of Patrick’s family. Letting them love on Annie all week long was just the icing on the cake to a really great trip.
PS: Annie’s cute little two-piece set is made by my cousin Peggy from her shop Peggy Green. You’ve got to see all the goodies she just launched for fall right over here.
And my cover-up was a recent find from Elaine Turner. The navy, white & red would be perfect to wear on Memorial Day of 4th of July next year. & now is as good a time as any to grab it, because it’s on super sale!
While Annie and I may not have been intentionally planning on matching in our green suits above, these suits were definitely planned. I discovered the brand Kortni Jeane over the summer and I am absolutely obsessed. With the most flattering assortment of bathing suits imaginable, in cuts & colors to suit any body type, the brand also offers matching bathing suits for the guys & girls in your life too! I’m kind of kicking myself for not getting Patrick an orange and white striped suit ha. Wouldn’t that have been a sight to see! 😉
While I’m sharing tons of snaps of only the three of us above, we were surrounded by so many loving family members all week long. Patrick’s family almost always plans this yearly beach trip and it is a tradition that I absolutely love! (I mean, how could you not!?) There were so many highlights of this wonderful trip & I’m rounding a few of my favorites up below.
Including:
watching Annie meet her great-grandmother for the first time
eating oysters down the street at the cutest little dive bar
reading my book on the back porch to the sound of waves crashing
introducing Annie to one of her grand “aunts”
mixing up bloody mary’s each morning to sip on the beach
discovering my new found love for the game Bananagrams
watching Annie’s face light up when her Aunt Caroline read to her before bed
cooking my favorite recipe with Patrick to serve to everyone for dinner one night
daily afternoon strolls in the sand
sipping coffee on the porch while a thunderstorm rolled on in the distance
& spending seven days in a row in paradise with some of our favorite people!
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Now that it’s fall, I’m so ready for the change of seasons and all that it entails. But there’s still a small part of me that is already counting down the days to next year’s family beach trip!
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And as always, thanks for stopping by the blog!
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xo, alice
