Our Trip To Anna Maria Island

Before the girls came home, one of the things I dreamed of doing was taking them to the beach for the very first time. There were so many "firsts" that we missed. I'm somewhat okay with that fact, because I know many of those "firsts" (especially with Khushboo and Kashila) were experienced with their birth family – first smiles, first words, first steps, first haircuts – I'm okay that their birth family were able to share in those joys. However, I looked forward to the "firsts" that would be ours to share, and watching them put their toes in the sand and experience the grandeur of the ocean for the first time was somewhere at the top of the list.

At the beginning of the year, we began planning to go to the beach around Lance and Asher's birthday (April). Additionally, I had discovered, through a friend, LegoLand in Florida gives pretty major discounts to home school families on certain days every month. When you have five kids, you will take any discount you can get. Can I get an amen from all my big-family-mamas? Lance and I really wanted to take advantage of this discount and take the kids to LegoLand for a day as a surprise, but I was having a hard time figuring out how to juggle a week at our usual beach spot, Panama City, and a day in Orlando. It seemed like a long drive for just one day (6 hours from Panama City).

Then it dawned on me... there are OTHER beaches in Florida! Imagine that! I started looking into beaches near central Florida and discovered a beautiful little island called Anna Maria which is just outside of Tampa and St. Petersburg. It looked like the perfect spot! While it would be a long drive down – about 8 or 9 hours with bathroom and food breaks – it was only a 2 hour drive to LegoLand, so that made a day trip there much more reasonable.

I found the perfect house for us to stay. It was huge! Three bedrooms, three bathrooms, large kitchen and dinning area AND the best part was it had it's own private pool! It was about a block from the beach which wasn't too bad. I wished we could have been right on the beach, but those type houses were quite hard to find in Anna Maria when you have a budget like ours. We booked the house for a full week and got our discounted tickets for LegoLand (an almost $400 savings)! The kids were so excited, even though they didn't know about LegoLand, and Lance and I were quite ready for a break from our daily grind.

Here's some pictures of the house... 

Front of the house. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The private pool. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The kitchen. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The kitchen and living room. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The dinning room and kitchen. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The master bedroom. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The master bedroom. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The master bathroom. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

The second upstairs bedroom. Picture by Anna Maria Accommodations.

We had planned to leave for the beach around 3:00am on Lance and Asher's birthday so the kids could sleep for a while in the car but we ended up getting away around 8ish instead because Lance and I were so tired from the day before. Somehow, I fit everything in the van and still had room to shove the kids in their seats. I should have received a metal for that feat. Seriously. Ten minutes down the road, Kashila asked if we were close to the beach. [Face-palm] It was going to be a looooooooooong drive.

Just before Albany, GA, we started having issues with the van. We had O'Riley's Auto Parts read the computer and discovered we had a bad spark plug! Thankfully we were able to get a new one and Lance replaced but it cost us some time. We were so glad we had not left in the early morning else we would have just been sitting around waiting for somewhere to open! We had hoped to be in Anna Maria in the afternoon but we didn't get there until 6ish! Overall the kids did GREAT on the road. I don't recall any meltdowns. Not even from the kids. :)

We loved Anna Maria Island! There's the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the Tampa Bay on the other side. The Island is very relaxed and simple. It's almost like old school Florida. The beach isn't lined with huge condominiums and I loved that! The Island has some small condo units but mostly there's just a bunch of houses. Our house was a block from Manatee Beach, which is the most popular public beach on the island. It has a cafe, a gift shop, a lifeguard, a playground and live music at night. The downside to this beach is it got very crowded by lunchtime. I'm not a huge fan of crowds, but with the kids, we aren't able to stay at the beach much longer than a few hours so it wasn't a huge deal.

The beach was a little different than what we are used to. The sand here wasn't soft and silky like the sand on the panhandle beaches. It's a lot coarser and mostly made up of broken bits of shells. This doesn't feel so good on your feet when you're walking up the beach. However, there were a lot of little shells to pick up and Khushboo and I really enjoyed our search for little purple ones.

All the kids loved the water. It was clear and warm. No jellyfish! We would go out with several inner tubes and enjoy the waves with all the kids. I was really impressed with how brave they all were! They also enjoyed playing in the sand. Kashila kept wanting to build a sandcastle but the sand just wasn't a good consistency for building nice sandcastles.

First day at the beach!

Brayden braving the waves!

This is how we roll... er, float.

Rabina wasn't too happy with the waves at this point.

Diggin!

They tried!

Brayden taking a break.

Busy bee.

Help me mom!

Ok, I'm helping.

The sunsets here are just gorgeous! We really liked going to the beach after dinner and taking in it's beauty as the sun went down. 

 

On Monday, we woke up and drove to LegoLand! We had told the kids we had a surprise for them but had not told them what it was until that morning. The boys were beside themselves! The girls were excited too but they didn't really have the big picture.

LegoLand was great! Everyone loved it but I'm glad we had gotten discount tickets else I would have felt ripped off! It rained for a couple of hours which hindered our fun slightly but overall we had a blast! We will definitely go back in the future. 

 

During our week long stay, we explored the island and the neighboring island of Longboat Key. We found a local doughnut shop in Anna Maria that makes custom doughnuts. Lance tried the maple and bacon one. Ewww! I tried the caramel and sea salt. It was nice but pretty heavy. We also ate ice cream at a local shop. All of our cones were made and some had already been licked by the time Lance and I tried to pay with our bank card and the staff informed us they only accepted cash! Ack! No "cash only" signs that we could see so how were we to know? Lance had to run to the ATM to get some cash. Note to self: bring more cash next time!

 

We also experienced some of the local gift shops which was fun. I had allowed the children a $40 limit. They could get anything up to $40. Helping children pick souvenirs and toys is like pulling teeth for me. I picked up a nice little Anna Maria coffee mug that I use all the time now. Khushboo and I got t-shirts. Brayden got a knife. Kashila and Asher got stuffed animals and various toys. Rabina got a mermaid doll.

For the most part, we ate at the house to save money, but Lance and I had wanted to go to a nice seafood restaurant on our last night on the island. We looked at all the reviews and chose the Waterfront Restaurant. It was $$$$$!!! The food was ok but not worth the $$$$$, so we will not be returning to the Waterfront on our next visit to Anna Maria. Next time we will go across the street to the restaurant at the end of the pier. We had walked up the pier while waiting for our table and spoke to some people leaving the restaurant. They said it was really good food and good prices. Oh and it's actually on the water!

The pier and the restaurant at the end.

While we were on the pier, we had the surprise of seeing a couple of manatees in the bay right off the pier. They just say there and smiled for the cameras. Well, they just sat there. None of us have ever seen manatees before, so Lance and I were quite impressed. The kids didn't care so much. 

The manatees

  I'm sure it sounds like we didn't do a ton of exciting stuff at the beach. That's probably because we didn't do a ton of exciting stuff, but that is just what we needed. I loved being able to spend the whole week as a family with nothing to do other than enjoy our time together. It was great! Lance and I both agreed that it was probably the best beach vacation we had ever had. We look forward to visiting Anna Maria Island again in the coming years.

Until next time! -K