30A recap

hey there! look at me, I'm sharing a blog post, somebody pinch me, ha! it's been forever but I really want to document our April vacation to 30A where we had the best time! 

 let's rewind, originally we were suppose to be in the beautiful Cayman Islands this past April, then with the world situation that wasn't an option, so we rebooked to the Turks and although it wasn't what we (ahem, me) really wanted, we knew it would be so nice! then the US put the testing to come back into place and well, with our kids we just didn't want to chance it. So, that led us to a vacation in the good old US of A and we landed on 30A - we have friends who have been and I've seen several bloggers post about it forever and it always looked like a good place! 

 we booked for a week and stayed in the cutest townhouse right on the ocean in Seagrove. 30A has several cute communities throughout and we felt Seagrove was the perfect middle ground (and we still think that after staying there!) here's a map for those not familiar with 30A

while we were there we did tons of bike riding (so proud of how long the kids lasted) tons of eating, tons of beaching and a few activities

we did head to the Gulf View Marina one day to swim with the dolphins and wow that was awesome! Rick and I have done that before kids but it's been forever and of course it was the kids first time. they were a little nervous but did great.

              

            

We ventured to the beautiful Rosemary Beach, such a cute area!

One day the boys went golfing and us girls did a craft day 

We took a boat/snorkeling tour one day too but looking back I wish we would have stayed back at our beach house because this was what the water looked like....

STUNNING!!

but the boat tour was fun too! and that's saying something for someone who doesn't do well on boats, ha!

ohhh those sunsets! 

we LOVED having a golf cart! we rode it so much and the kids had a blast!

we also took professional family pics while there and we were blown away with them! i love family beach pictures!! here's just a sample - love this family of mine!! 

we are already wishing for the day we can get back to this area!!

Have you been to 30A? tell me some favorite spots or things to do for next time!

My love for Mixbook

Today I'm sharing with you all about the company Mixbook- have you heard of them? I discovered them a few years ago and fell in love with their products.

I take ALOT of pictures and before I found Mixbook, I would make a quarterly photobook through Shutterfly of our family's year. There was nothing wrong with that except the photo books were piling up and I found myself creating a new theme for each book (which can be fun) but it was becoming exhausting.

I don't even remember how I found Mixbook, but when I did, I was instantly drawn to their yearbook style photo books. I decided at that moment that going forward, I would make one photobook a year and it would be our family's yearbook.

I went with black 8 1/2" x 11 size and I love the sleekness of it. That's the size I do all my books now.

I choose to put my photos in the book myself instead of having them auto uploaded. The reason is because I know if I do it myself, I can fit a ton more pictures on each page (which is necessary when you are well on your way to a $200 photo book because you take all the pictures)

It takes a while to do this, but it's worth it.





I have started a system that makes it a little easier. I save all the current years pictures in their own monthly folder on our computer. At the end of each month, I go to Mixbook and upload that month's pictures. Then I start my photo book for that month. If I do it like this, it is not nearly as overwhelming as waiting until the entire year is over and then going back and doing month by month (I've done this, and it has taken me FOREVER)







I can tell as the years are going by, my books are becoming bigger and bigger! 2016 was the biggest yet with almost 200 pages!

Mixbook doesn't only do photobooks - they have so many other awesome products! They do custom cards for every occasion, they do calendars and even home decor!

So tell me, have you heard of Mixbook? Do you order from them? If not, I hope you will check them out!

*I was gifted a photo book in exchange for my honest thoughts and opinions



*linking up with Lindsays Sweet World & Our Pretty Little Girls

Spring Family Photos

I mentioned a few weeks ago we went and took some family photos - well I got them and I'm pretty much in love all over again with my little family.

We used Mandy Ringe Photography for this session and I'm so happy with what she captured, given it was 42 degrees outside, no sun whatsoever and our kids were having some major meltdowns (some which were totally understood given the cold weather!)

Now to bombard you with the pictures!

*linking up with Home of Malones for Thoughts for Thursday