The third time was most definitely the charm for our extended family trip to WaterColor, Florida! Originally scheduled for spring break 2020 (whomp whomp), we tentatively rescheduled for spring break 2021. When not everyone was comfortable with traveling and gathering at that point, we made a final move to the week of Labor Day 2021 and were SO HAPPY to settle our feet into the sugary sand of the Gulf Coast at long last! Here’s a little bit about our trip, if you’d like to see!
To begin, let me just say that Florida’s 30A, and WaterColor and Seaside specifically, is a straight-up magical place. WaterColor is a master-planned community and resort with gorgeous pastel homes, live oaks, and shady streets dotted with cruiser bikes and golf carts, a stone’s throw from the beach and the Seaside Center Square.
And it’s not just a pretty face – our stay felt as good as it looked. The vibe is sweet and slow, and everything seems built for connective experiences.
Because we were traveling with John’s extended family, we split the rental of a large home through a rental agency (pictured below!). We chose the house to sleep 16, but in the end we traveled with 12 when one sister and family wasn’t able to come (so sad!). I would highly recommend the home we stayed in – everything was comfortable and in great condition, the rental included a six-seater golf cart and bikes, and it was a 5-minute walk from Camp Watercolor, the main pool for kids. This made it easy to take multiple pool trips a day, which we did several times!
In fact, that’s how most of our days were spent – bopping between the pool (complete with lazy river, two waterslides, and a zero-entry pool), the beach (more about that in a sec), and the house, where we could spread out for meals and quiet hour across multiple porches and balconies. In between, we biked, golf-carted, and strolled around the idyllic streets, coastal paths, and town centers of Seaside and Watercolor. No detailed itinerary to share for this vacation :)
We stayed for five nights and barely scratched the surface of what Watercolor has to offer – we only visited one pool (of the six available with your rental!), we never did any water sports, and we didn’t visit any of the other beach communities along 30A. All the more reason to return :)
The main infinity pool at the Watercolor resort. We didn’t swim here but walked by on our way to the beach!
We did go out to eat dinner once, at the famous Bud & Alley’s, but I can’t say I recommend it… the food felt average and overpriced to me, and unless you’re on the roof deck, the atmosphere felt like a low-budget tent, ha. We did have lunch at Scratch Biscuit Kitchen, takeout pizza from Pizza Bar (also owned by Bud & Alley’s), and multiple fancy frozen chocolate bananas from Nigel’s, and all were delicious. Other than that, we mostly cooked at home – there’s a Publix right outside of the neighborhood, and the couples each took turns making dinner.
A major draw for this area, of course, is the beach, and the Gulf did not disappoint! The water was SO beautiful – clear and aqua, with truly sugary sand. For better or worse, however, it can be tricky to access for a beach day. If you’re a guest of the resort (including a rental home), you can be on the stretch in front of the Inn, but you cannot bring in your own chairs or umbrellas (they want you to rent from them, of course!). We thought the rental prices were a bit absurd, but we really needed to have shade with an infant, so we opted to set up in the tiny sliver of public beach sandwiched between private stretches.
And when I say tiny, I mean TINY – it was maybe 100 feet wide. Because of when we were visiting, this was totally fine – though the public sliver was more populated than the almost-empty resort stretches on either side, it didn’t feel crowded. And once you’re in the water, you can move about freely :) The kids loved splashing in the gentle waves and making sand castles, and we loved playing alongside them – aside from loving their company, it was SO nice to have grandparents around to hold Annie while we swam with the big kids. (The access we used was the Van Ness Butler Jr. Regional Beach Access!)
Speaking of our visit timing – we arrived on Labor Day Monday and immediately strolled through the Seaside Center Square to the beach, and it was QUITE busy. After that, however, it was not busy at all, and our weather was beautiful! Early September seemed like a great time to visit. This shot was from that first night – John with all the cousins :)
For someone like me, who counts among her main hobbies strolling through scenic neighborhoods, WaterColor is heaven – the cuteness factor is off the charts, with each house more charming than the last. We went on multiple scoots, walks, bike rides, and golf cart rides to admire the details up close (sometimes with scavenger hunts for extra fun!).
I visited WaterColor more than a decade before this trip, for my very first photo shoot for Southern Weddings, and it was as magical as I remembered. I’m so grateful I got to return with family! Because of course, though the scenery was sublime, the very best part was being together.
There are so many amazing places in the world, aren’t there? Thanks for letting me share a little bit about this one!
P.S. My friend Rhi has a much more comprehensive guide to Seaside on her blog, if you’re planning a trip!
I was doing a little blog organization this week, sketching out the posts I want to share before the end of the year, and it turns out there are 20. (And these are, in my mind, just the must-dos – gift guides, year-end round-ups, major events I want to capture in the same calendar year, etc.) This is not great news, as I average 5-8 posts per month and November and December are busier than usual months, but I’m looking forward to all of them and I am determined!
So – let’s kick things off with a recap of our late summer/early fall visits to Atlanta, specifically the neighborhoods of Decatur and Virginia-Highland! We parked in Atlanta on both ends of our vacation to Florida’s 30A – it was the perfect midway stopping point to break up an epic road trip. On the way down, we stayed in Decatur, a small-ish city outside Atlanta proper, and on the way back up we stayed in Virginia-Highland, a neighborhood near midtown Atlanta.
These were very brief stays – just one night in Decatur and two nights in Virginia-Highland – but they were both an absolute delight! As I wrote about here, we were hoping to go deep instead of wide on these visits. In the past, we’ve found ourselves criss-crossing cities to check off “must visits.” Instead, we wanted to pick a neighborhood, park ourselves there for the day, and leisurely walk from a breakfast spot to a park to an activity to lunch and back to our Airbnb. And that’s exactly what we did! (This was especially helpful after a long car ride for little kids who were eager to stretch their legs.)
I’m happy to share a little peek into our adventures in case it might be helpful for a future trip of your own!
First: Decatur! We left the Triangle on the Friday of Labor Day weekend, and opted to stay with my sister and her family near Charlotte that night to help break up the drive. From Charlotte, it was about a 4.5 hour drive to Decatur; we left early enough to arrive in time for lunch at the Brick Store Pub on the Square. It was a gorgeous day and we were able to eat outside at their cafe tables (they also have a beer garden with more outdoor seating in back!). We didn’t sample any of the beer, but the sandwiches were delicious. Their menu is American with a European twist: I had a chicken salad melt with havarti and marinated tomatoes and John had the turkey sandwich with smoked gouda and peppadews. Yum.
After lunch we drove about five minutes outside of town to pick up our timed tickets for the Fernbank Museum. We were trying to limit our time inside at this point, so we opted to mostly explore the grounds with our crew.
The museum has 75 acres, including walking trails, a canopy walk, and nature playgrounds. It was nice (and again, a beautiful day!) but we are absolutely spoiled by our local Museum of Life and Science and Fernbank fell a little short for us given the ticket price. My favorite part might have been spotting the most ridiculously beautiful home through the woods on one of the walking trails, ha! To be fair it was magical:
We spent about two hours at the museum, and then hopped back in the car to check in at our Airbnb (about a five-minute drive away). As always, John did a phenomenal job scouting our stay – this Airbnb was one of our favorites we’ve ever stayed in! Everything was sparkling clean, there was music playing when we arrived and chocolates to greet us, a cute porch swing, and comfy beds. The only slight drawback was that the driveway was very intimidating – it was long and seemed to rise almost straight into the air, without much room to turn around at the top. But we managed!
After feeding Annie, exploring the house, and freshening up, we drove back into the Square, Decatur’s town center. We chose this Airbnb because it was close enough to walk to the Square, but in the end we opted to drive to dinner because our crew hadn’t napped that day and we felt like a 20-minute walk there and back would be pushing our luck (plus, we’d be in the dark). But if you stay in this Airbnb, you could totally walk! It would be a bit hilly, but would take you through an adorable neighborhood and there are sidewalks on the main road. I snapped a few photos out the car window, thoroughly embarrassing John per usual.
For dinner, we ended up at Leon’s Full Service. We were hoping to eat at No. 246 (an Italian spot next door to Leon’s!) but they didn’t have any availability until 10. At Leon’s, a former gas station, we were seated right away on their outdoor patio. Our food was good, but the menu was a little exotic for even our adventurous eaters. After dinner, we walked across the Square for ice cream at Jeni’s (delicious, as always!). We ate it on the green space in the middle of the Square, which was so neat.
The next morning we picked up bagels from B-Side Bagels for a quick breakfast, again eating them on the Square. Yummy, though we’d try something else if we returned. After that, we hopped back in the car and got on the road to Florida!
You all were so generous to share SO many great Decatur restaurant suggestions, and we wished we had more time to explore them! On our short list for next time: No. 246, Chai Pani, Victory Sandwich, The White Bull, Iberian Pig, and Sweet Melissa’s. They’re all grouped right around the Square and they all looked good.
Up next: probably the first gift guide, then our stay in Watercolor, Florida!
As I work away on the third post in the blogging series, I thought I’d pop in with a quicker share: the 2021 volume of June in June! This yearly video fell at a doozy of a time for our family: I was eight months pregnant, and John had just ruptured his Achilles’ tendon and was on crutches. Needless to say, we were not doing many of the activities that usually populate these videos: hikes, trips, swimming in creeks, neighborhood walks, camping, tennis, and more. In fact, my face doesn’t make a single appearance in this video, and that does make me a little bit sad.
But you know what does appear? June’s smile, because she is sunshine. My parents, because they stayed with us for six weeks to help out. My hands, twice, and my voice and my laugh, because I was committed to getting behind the camera and keeping this tradition alive, even in the midst of upheaval. And our home, a soft and warm place to land, even if we did get a little stir crazy at times.
Each of these videos, no matter the year, is a snapshot of our life and our little one in that season. This one just happens to be particularly unusual :) I hope you enjoy a peek, friends!
After a pregnancy-and-injury-and-newborn phase where we didn’t get out and about as much as we would have liked, our whole family is excited for fall! In a twist on our usual fun list, I asked June and Shep what they’d like to make time for this season yesterday after school. They are now actually old enough to remember things from last fall, and it was fun to hear their priorities. I combined their answers with John’s and mine, and printed out this list for our fridge. Here’s to a beautiful season ahead, and happy first day of fall, friends!
— Enjoy our annual mountain trip (Black Mountain this year!) — Make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins — Biscuits, hot dogs, and the ferris wheel at the State Fair — Play at the Museum of Life & Science — Walk to our neighborhood food truck festival — Go on a Halloween neighborhood scavenger hunt using this sweet printable — Celebrate Thanksgiving — Make pumpkin pie with June (it’s in her baking book and she’s been asking for MONTHS) — Pick pumpkins at the patch and go on the tractor — Decorate our front porch and house — Hike somewhere with beautiful leaves — Add candy googly eyes to things during the month — Make a chocolate chip Dutch baby (I’ve never made one before, but they look fun!) — Pack a picnic and eat lunch outside — Camp with friends — Make apple cider scones for our teachers — Host the pumpkins and soup party (maybe modified? we shall see!) — Pick apples — Have a sidewalk bakery — Dress our mantel for fall (I bought these vase fillers to make a garland!) — Roast s’mores in our fire pit — Dress up and trick-or-treat as a family
I’d love to hear what you’re looking forward to this fall! I didn’t even add any savory foods I’m looking forward to making/eating to this list, but there are many :)
