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Writer's pictureLana Wilson

Family Beach Trip

How we did it all with six kids!

First, we drove to Panama City Beach to see my in-laws for a few days. My husband's cousin and his family joined us, and we had a blast with all of the good food and attractions. We had plenty of yummy treats from Stingray's beside the pool, which is steps from the beach. They had live music on the pool deck and delicious drinks for the adults as well. It's funny that this is the year that our five year old (our oldest) decided that he is brave enough to go under water and jump in the pool. Don't let him fool you, he still isn't enthused about it; however, he no longer opposes the idea of making a splash, and for that, I'm thankful. We have been trying to get him to be brave enough to jump in and let loose, but he is our rule follower and gets himself too worried sometimes. I'm just glad that he is finally taking the leap (literally) while at his MiMi and PawPaw's pool at the beach.


We took all six kids and six adults down the road to Patches Pub & Grill where they also had live music, which is so appealing when you have so many loud children. I recommend the Grouper Sandwich (grilled) with a side salad. The kids will love and devour their pizzas, I promise! After another day of fun in the sun, we took everyone out to eat again at J Michaels, which has been a favorite spot of mine ever since we've had kids. There is a big deck with a couple of "fish" for the kids to play on while waiting. There is a designated kids area with toys and kids TV shows on and little chairs, etc. inside. They even give the kids a little pouch with a few pieces of candy and a balloon (bribery to eat their meals). I love it! Every time I go, I get the Large Greek Salad with Grilled Shrimp (oil and vinegar dressing). It's huge and so very tasty. My husband and I always find an opportunity to split a dozen raw oysters, and we did that night. We also decided that it was time for my husband to finally experience the infamous Sling Shot this night, and it was oh so worth watching him fly into the sky and scream and laugh (you can see this in our video). Luckily, none of the food we ate was thrown up. The next day, before leaving Panama City Beach, we had to let the kids go to an arcade. So we made our way to Emerald Falls for about 45 minutes before heading to Mexico Beach!


The drive from Panama City Beach to Mexico Beach is only an hour. We arrived at our beach house at Waterside Village and were stunned at how perfect it was. Three of the kids stayed in the bunkbed room, our youngest stayed in his pack 'n play, and the other two kids slept on an air mattress. The garage/street side of the house faced the ocean; we only had to cross the street to be on the beach. The other side of the house faced a canal, which was lined with docks for everyone's boats. We enjoyed walking along the docks to the pool, which was the best set up for the kids. There was a hot tub and a small waterfall that the kids couldn't get enough of, and the pool had a long walk in area that was great for those just learning to swim.


We mostly cooked at the house every day for lunch and every night for dinner (minus one night, which I'll get to that later). There is a little fish market right down the road from where we stayed called Shell Shack, which didn't disappoint us one bit. We made grouper and shrimp tacos, scallops with pasta, and peel and eat shrimp with oysters and salad. We had gone to a grocery store on our way to Mexico Beach because we were told that there wasn't a big grocery store anymore due to hurricane damage. However, we found that the little Mexico Beach Market had just about everything we would need for our stay. Now we know for next time.


The husbands took the oldest two boys down the road to go fishing, and it was adorable to see pictures of them catching fish together. They fished in the canal too but didn't have any luck. While they were fishing, the younger kids and us wives took to the beach! It was so nice having so much space at the beach. We simply packed a wagon with two chairs, a few beach toys and sunscreen (and white wine on ice). The best part of where we stayed is really the location. Being so close to the beach and having access to a pool too is crucial with younger kids like ours. The ages range from 1 to 6 years old for all of our kids, which leads me to my final topic...


If you choose to take six young kids out to eat for dinner while on vacation, plan ahead and go early. You will see a clip of us all at the dinner table in our video, and it's quite comical. Don't wait for normal dinner time like we did. We expected to wait an hour for a table, but it was over two hours for our whole group to be seated. We could have just left early instead of waiting, but it was almost a mind game after the one hour mark with the kids getting hungry. We all kept thinking "okay, it has to be us next" and "well, we've waited this long, we may as well wait a little longer". Lord, it took everything in us to contain those kids while we went through the different stages of impatience. By the end of it, the adults actually found it all to be pretty humorous. The kids did not find it funny one bit. I won't name the place we ate at because it was our fault for going too late with a large group, and I don't want this to come off badly for the restaurant.

Our last day was so sweet (literally). We took the kids to get ice cream at Mexico Beach Sweets, which was walking distance from the beach house. It's attached to other little shops that are so adorable. I even bought the kids a few beach story books that are precious. We ended the day on the beach watching the sunset while the kids collected seashells. It was the best evening. Overall, we had a blast this last beach trip. So much so that we are currently planning our next vacation for next summer. We are in hopes to book the same place and possibly get a boat to utilize the easy access from the beach house docks. Until next year!




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