VACATION!!

Travel is one of my love languages. I love, love, love exploring new cities and making memories in a new place.

Before having kids, Matt and I got to experience almost 7 years of traveling together. You can see recaps of most of our adventures here. Once Ryan was born, we knew we wanted to continue seeing new places with him (and now with Natalie too!) and just plan our trips a little differently than we did when it was just the two of us.

For whatever reason, planning this year's vacation has taken me for.ev.ER! Yes, I don't have quite as much free time on my hands (It's not even 5am yet as I write this, hah!), so that's certainly part of it, but I think the ages of our kids (Ryan will be 2 at the end of next month and Natalie just turned 4 months) took some extra consideration when we were planning what kind of trip we wanted to take.

In our marriage, I'm usually the one who starts the planning and narrows down the locations, and then Matt does the research, reads reviews, and helps make the final decision. He's also the voice of reason on things like why traveling to a place like Hawaii with a 9+ hour flight and a 6 hour time difference might not be the best idea for a toddler and a four month old who loves her sleep and routine. Maybe in a few years then. ;)

So considering the age of our kids, I started the planning process by making a list of cities we'd like to see, keeping in mind length of flight, cost, drive from the airport once we arrived, and time change:

After looking through these places and feeling like none were right for this year for various reasons, we started thinking about places we'd like to visit in the U.S.

We came across a number of family resorts and cities that are great to travel with kids and made a list of places we'd like to see when our kids are a bit older and can participate in all of the activities. A few of the places we found include:

San Diego- Lowes Coronado Bay

Vermont- The Tyler Place Family Resort

Bahamas- Atlantis

San Antonio- JW Marriot Resort & Spa

...and of course DISNEY!

So after weeks and weeks of research and planning, we are super excited about our decision to head to MAINE in mid-July!!

Give me all the light houses, bike rides, boat tours, town square shops and lobster please!

We'll be staying at The Harborside Hotel & Marina in Bar Harbor and plan to bike ride in Acadia National Park and eat lobster and ice cream every day. We cannot WAIT!

We told Ryan yesterday about our upcoming adventure and he was ready to head to the airport. Boy after my own heart. :) 

We'll head out later this month for our first flight and vacation as a family of four! Woohoo!

Have a great week, ya'll!

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