Heathcott Party of Six: Navarre Beach Florida

The "Woodward" Family

We just got home from a week at the beach. I have a sense of accomplishment after surviving a road trip with the fam! It is always an adventure with 3 wee ones, especially when doing so in a tropical thunderstorm! Our vacation started off a little rocky. The night before we were going to leave, Hampton came down with an upper respiratory sinus infection. So Friday morning I took him to the doctor for meds for himself and the rest of the kiddos. I prayed that no one would catch this, but they always share germs! So after getting prescriptions filled, u-haul loaded, and everyone happy, we started our journey to Florida.

Harper and my parents were riding together and they had planned on making the trek in 2 days. We considered caravanning with them, but decided we were going to drive through the night. We made our first stop at Mc Donalds. I mean where do you stop with triplets?? So this was a family first! It had just started to rain, so Cam grabbed the diaper bag and took Hudson inside to order and get our table set up. I hung back to get Hampton and Hogan. When I got Hogan out of the car seat he was burning up. So now all 3 have/had fevers. We talked it over and decided that we needed to stay somewhere for the night.

We only thought we were going to pull and all nighter, but with 3 sicklets we decided to stop. A huge shout out to Homewood Suites for having 3 cribs waiting for us when we arrived. We tried to bring in minimal stuff because we were just staying one night. I was really hoping to read or even watch tv....something that I never get to do, but I quickly learned that sleeping in the same room with THREE little boys was going to make that impossible. The boys took turns being up all night, no one felt good and it was just a LONG night for all. I ended up falling asleep while waiting for everyone to fall asleep, so I slept in my clothes. nice. The following day we woke up, ~~grabbed breakfast~~ ate breakfast in shifts at the hotel and headed to our destination. Five minutes after getting in the car a tropical storm hit. So we cautiously drove until the weather calmed down. We found a Bass Pro and *thought* that would be a great place to stretch our legs, eat lunch, check fevers, get a few things for the beach, and let the kids look around at the aquarium. I think we totally forgot that we had 3 sick kids and only a double stroller, which meant one of us would be holding one child along with performing many other tasks. ie navigating the double through a store, making bottles, changing diapers etc, taking a potty break etc!

Time totally got away from us and before we knew it we had 3 screaming babies, 2 tired parents, and 5 hungry tummys. We decided we needed to leave because we were starting to draw crowds! We walked out of the entrance only to see that it is raining. So we did what every parent traveling with a triplets has to do. RUN. We had a U-haul, so we were at the very back of the parking lot in order to park parallel in the parking spots! It ended badly, we now had 3 wet and sick babies, and 2 irritable parents! What a day! We decided we were not stopping until we were at the beach house.

My sicklets

Love this!

Pit stop to put on jammies at Mc Donalds- a first for the trio

We were SO happy to reunite with Harper at the beach house and get out of the car. When we arrived it was raining sideways, it felt like we were on an episode of storm chasers. We attempted to unpack and get ~~settled~~ dried off. Harper was trying to be patient, but he could not wait to get down to the beach!! The rain finally quit and he was off the moment it stopped! The water was really rough and the waves were crashing. There was hardly any beach left. He tried to stay out of the water, but it was next to impossible. So he ended up in the ocean, clothes and all!

Wyatt and Harper looking for shells

Loving the beach

That evening we went crab hunting. It was so much fun! The boys loved running around with their flashlights and scooping them up. We caught a bunch, but we decided to let them go and catch them again the next night. The night ended with me giving Hampton a double dose of medicine, Hogan's dose of dimetapp. That is what happens when you get distracted. So we called Poison Control and they said he would either be tired or hyper, but that I hadn't given him enough to go to the hospital. Thank goodness. Wow, what day!

Wyatt, Harper, Cam, Jim, and Bobby

Crabbin'

Bobby and his girls

Beautiful rainbow

After the storm passed

Impromptu family pics

Attempting to play in the sand behind our house

Hampton and Hudson

Sandy!

That face sums it up!

All the pictures from above are from Day 1-3. It was rainy the first day, so we played indoors and continued to get settled. We had everyone over to our house for some Tex-Mex Enchiladas. The cousins wrestled and had so much fun playing. We went to the beach for a little bit in between storms. Harper enjoyed "running" away from the waves.

Day 2 was finally sunny. Harper caught a fish in the bay with Poppy and Cam. He flew a kite and picked up 7 crabs with his bare hands!!

Day3- Harper and the twins played baseball, Cam and I went for a run, Harper rode waves all afternoon and even ventured out to the sand bar. Harper went fishing again and caught the one and only fish. He is obsessed with fishing! Cam and I went out to celebrate our anniversary with Bobby and Rattana at Harry T's. We had a great time and I feel so blessed to have friends that are my family!! I hope we can take the boys to Harborwalk Village on our next trip. They would love watching the boats come in and enjoy the little train that passes by.

Day 4- The girls headed to the outlet mall to do a little retail therapy. The traffic was terrible getting to San Destin, so we made a quick trip. We took the boys down to the beach and set up a little area for them to play. They didn't love the baby pool or sand. All I can say is we tried! They were just not feeling well and it was a lot of work to get them ready for the sun and sand. Eventually we quit putting swimsuits and swim diapers on them! All of the cousins and spouses went out to eat at Poppy's Crazy Lobster. The food was good, but the company was my favorite part of the night.

Day 5- The water was the calmest and clearest. Unfortunately, most of our gang went deep sea fishing. I hung back with the littles and mom and I took turns going to the beach. I bonded with Zoe and we with "Schwimming" all afternoon. The fisherman caught a ton of fish, so we had a fish fry and birthday celebration for all of our June birthdays.