Our trip to Florida was wonderful. It was many things – a spring break getaway, a warm-weather delight early in the season, abundant cousin time, a chance to eat more frozen bananas and return to one of our favorite idyllic spots – but mostly, it was time together to honor my in-law’s fifty years of marriage. I would love to share a bit about our celebration today!
First, though, the rest of the trip: it was a dream. We had near-perfect weather, with nary a drop of rain until we drove out of town: it was mid-70’s and sunny or partly cloudy most days. Like last time, we rented a large home in Watercolor and rode our bikes and the included golf cart all over the community.
We ate the aforementioned frozen bananas, we played pickleball and tennis, we went to the beach, we worshipped at the Seaside Chapel on Palm Sunday.
We went to all three pools (Camp Watercolor, the Frog Pool, and the beach club), we set out in a flotilla of paddle boards and kayaks, we cooked lots of meals, we played lots of cards. We took many evening walks, and I even finished two books (this one and this one!).
We also took a jaunt one evening to North Beach Social, a bayside restaurant with outdoor tables, a kids’ area, and live music. We had a blast and it was the perfect spot to celebrate my nephew’s fourth birthday (complete with a Publix cake, a Florida classic!).
It was particularly fun to watch Annie enjoy herself, as she was just two months old when we visited in 2021. She was ob-sessed with the big waterslide at Camp Watercolor and belly-flopping into the pool; took a hilarious and inexplicable disliking to her Uncle Seth, who is a reliable kid charmer (he won her over by the end of the week!); loved riding in the Bee alongside a cousin; and enjoyed being the only kid to accompany her mama and aunts on a shopping trip one morning.
I was a poor influencer on this trip, as almost all of my camera roll is filled with smiling family members instead of scenic hot spots. If you’re interested in a few more details about what there is to do and see in Watercolor, my post from 2021 might help!
What I would love to go into detail on, though, is how we celebrated my in-law’s wedding anniversary. As we all know, celebrating well usually takes a lot of intentionality and forethought. I’ve missed opportunities to do so many times! As a group, I think we pulled together a really sweet and meaningful evening, and I’d love to share what we did in case it helps one of you with your own celebration.
First, it’s worth mentioning that my in-law’s graciously footed the bill for the majority of the house rental. On the one hand, this is kind of funny – we were celebrating them! On the other, when I think about myself and John (should we be lucky enough to celebrate 50 years of marriage and have the means to do so), there will likely almost nothing else we’d rather spend money on than bringing together our kids and grandkids for a week. So yes, I totally get it. We are incredibly grateful they chose to help make this week happen for all of us.
Most of the week was a fairly typical vacation (see above), but Wednesday was set aside for the official celebration. A couple of months before, we had booked a private chef to come to the house and prepare dinner. This ended up being a fantastic decision. We were visiting Florida during spring break week, and it was busy. If all 15 of us had tried to go to a sit-down restaurant for our special dinner, it likely would have been a) chaotic, b) loud, c) challenging to be present while managing small children, d) expensive, or e) all of the above.
Instead, we had a peaceful, delicious dinner in our lovely rental home where we enjoyed conversation and our kids enjoyed themselves, too. For four courses, we paid just over 1,000 for 15 of us, which included tax, service fees, gratuity, the private chef, and a server. We booked through Swiftly Catered and would recommend them!
A few other intentional details and highlights of the night:
We tidied the downstairs before the chef arrived. Of course, we tried to keep the common areas clear throughout the week, but things pile up with so many people staying together. We cleaned off surfaces, tucked away pool bags, and scooped up board books and crayon pouches. This made a huge difference!
We dressed for the occasion. From grandparents to preschoolers, we all chose a more formal outfit for the evening’s festivities. Since we weren’t transitioning to a new space as in a restaurant, this helped it feel more like an occasion. Everyone looked lovely :)
The kids dined separately. While we enjoyed the hors d’oeuvres course, the kids were busy upstairs (more on that below). For the rest of the meal, they were seated on the screened porch while the grown-ups (and Annie, in a high chair), ate in the dining room. This was how we ate most dinners, and it was perfect: we could see them clearly, but could not hear them, ha. Once the kids finished their meal (much more quickly than us!), we settled them in with a movie upstairs and enjoyed another hour of conversation.
The kids stole the show. At least one of the cousins has a theatrical streak, and somehow the 7 of them decided to write and perform an original song. And so they did :) It was, you know, not the MOST musically advanced, but they knew their audience and the grandparents loved it.
We asked questions. With my brothers-in-law leading the way, we used our dinner table conversation to guide my in-laws into reminiscing about their 50 years together. We talked about how they met, their first date, what attracted them to each other, their engagement and wedding, their hardest and best years of marriage, and more. It was funny and sweet and I think it meant a lot to them to get to share. (And of course we all loved it.)
We wrote notes. Some of the family is more reserved, so emotional, long-winded toasts aren’t really the group’s vibe. Instead, each child + spouse pair wrote a note in advance to share with the parents. This was quite meaningful to me, and John’s parents reflected that it was meaningful to them, as well. Just as John has been with me for more than half of my life, so have his parents. I was grateful to have a reason to share with them again my gratitude for the gift that their son is to me and our children, for all that they sacrificed to give me that gift, to thank them for specific moments in our past, and to share what their marriage and role in my life has meant to me. I’m tearing up just thinking about it! It can feel strange to be so vulnerable, but it is always worth it.
We played the not-so-newlywed game. To finish the evening, we pulled out two white boards and a prepared list of questions and compared their answers to questions like “do you have a song?” and “what was his/her first job?” We laughed, we learned a few new things – a perfect cap to the evening.
Something else we talked about at dinner: our memories of our grandparents’ 50th anniversaries. Both John’s and his sisters’ Dad’s parents and my Dad’s parents were lucky enough to reach 50 years of marriage, and we all remember the celebrations – in their case, a party in the church basement, and in mine, a party on the church lawn :) All happy memories. I hope our children will have the same many years from now.
I’d love to hear: do you have memories of celebrations for your parents’ or grandparents’ milestone anniversaries? Did you do something memorable to celebrate? Please share!
Can you point to anything in your past about which you remember saying, “When our budget has room to breathe/I pay off my loans/I get a raise, I’m finally going to splurge on ______”? I can think of two, and I thought it might be fun to chat about them today.
I’ve mentioned here and there the idea of our household budget expanding over time, which is both somewhat fiddly to talk about but also something I feel it’s important to be realistic about. And also, isn’t it the arc we all hope to realize over time? I’ve been writing this blog for almost 15 years – it spans from the perspective of a college senior to a mid-30’s mom – so I certainly hope my financial situation has changed over our time together. Yours, too :)
And it has. John and I have moved from a season of paying off student loans and entry-level jobs (where splitting a burrito at Chipotle was a rare treat) to a new season where we have advanced in our careers and can comfortably afford most things we want. (Though you better believe we still live by our budget – in fact, I’m thinking of updating that very old post because so many of you have emailed hoping I’d get the example Google Doc fixed up. Let me know if that would be of interest!)
Accordingly, our budget has expanded a bit, and it’s been interesting to adjust our behavior to fit it. It’s been sweet, but also has required some rewiring, some uncertainty, some resetting of expectations. For example, I was chatting with John about buying tickets to Wicked, which is coming to the DPAC here in August. I have wanted to see it for years and years and years, and I said to him that maybe we could make it an early Christmas present? To which he gently said, “You know, we can just go to a show occasionally. We don’t have to try to shoehorn it into the nearest holiday.”
And he’s right – we’ve made room for it in our budget. But old habits die hard :) Which on the whole, I’m grateful for! I’d always rather set my expectations for spending too low than too high.
There are two seemingly small things, though, that years ago I identified as milestones and said to myself, when our budget feels more comfortable, I’ll do those things. That will feel like a splurge. That will really be living, ha. They’re kind of hilarious in retrospect, but here they are:
1. Pre-peeled garlic. Many years ago – probably pre-kids – I remember having lunch at a friend’s house and watching her cook a noodle dish. She pulled a bag of pre-peeled garlic from the fridge, swiftly chopped it up, and added it to a saute pan.
I find peeling garlic to be one of those grating kitchen tasks that slows down my meal prep flow, leaves annoying bits of papery peel drifting around my kitchen, and makes my hands reek. The idea of being able to pluck a clove from a bag and immediately press it into action? The height of luxury.
Alas, I didn’t feel I could justify a $4.50 or so bag of pre-peeled garlic every week when the garlic head was $.50 and lasted at least two weeks. But about a year ago, I decided it was time, and plucked the coveted bag from the produce cooler.
And friends, it’s been as good as I thought it would be all those years. The only downside? The garlic in the fridge spoiled faster than I could use it. But I found a solution: keeping the bag in the freezer! The cloves thaw enough to slice in a few seconds, and since we’re cooking them 90% of the time, we’ve never noticed any difference in flavor.
2. A compost service. Probably five years ago, I heard about a service called Compost Now, which swaps out your full compost bucket for a clean one once a week. They come right to your doorstep – you just have to leave it on your porch. They process your kitchen scraps along with everyone else in your community, and whenever you’d like, you can request bags of dirt, or donate the dirt you’ve contributed to to local community gardens. Amazing! I thought. The price? Not so amazing. (It’s currently $39/month.)
I come from a long line of composters, and it’s something that matters to me. You may recall that we had a good long run of driving our compost bucket to the compost bins in our neighborhood community garden, but it was a hassle that did not survive the addition of a third child to our family.
Earlier this year, I decided our budget could support a Compost Now membership, and it’s been a dream. The bucket lives under our sink and the whole process couldn’t be easier – you can throw in everything from meat and bones to flour and sugar bags, flower arrangements to pizza boxes. I love that we’re able to live out something that matters to us.
In the end, I hope that that’s always what our budget expanding feels like – living into what matters to us more and more, not necessarily just adding comfort or luxury or ease to our lives (though those things are all nice, too!). I’m toying with another Marvelous Money post about generosity, our role in it and how we think about it, and how it changes over time – would love to know if that would be of interest, too.
But of course, I must know: what splurges, big or small, have you realized over time? Especially ones that are recurring versus one-time? Please share!
P.S. If you’re in an area that Compost Now serves (currently: Atlanta, Asheville, Raleigh-Durham, Charleston, and Cincinnati) and also want to splurge, you can use my link to get a $10 service credit.
You all know we are big fans of the road trip over here. Since having kids, we’ve opted to travel by car pretty much every chance we get, including regular multi-day, 15+ hour treks to Maine and Michigan. There are many reasons for this: it’s less expensive, it may be better for the environment, we believe it’s growing something good in our kids – but one really important reason is that we just plain enjoy it.
We enjoy road trips in general, but we’ve also kind of perfected the form for our family over the years. We bring takeout to parks for picnic lunches, we pack good snacks and activities, and we try to make our overnight stops destinations in themselves. Sometimes this looks like staying at a riverfront Airbnb, sometimes it looks like staying with family friends, sometimes it looks like staying at a lakefront inn, and on our most recent spring break road trip to Florida’s 30A area, it looked like staying at the nature and wellness community Serenbe, about 40 minutes outside of Atlanta.
I have a long history with Serenbe. It was the scene of the second Southern Weddings’ photo shoot I ever worked on, back in 2009; I fell in love with it the minute I drove onto the property as a wide-eyed recent graduate. I returned in 2014 for another photo shoot, again with nothing but good things to say. John has obviously heard me chatter about it for years, and curious to see it for himself, we decided to make it the overnight stop on our two-day drive to Florida. As I knew it would be, it was the most magical road trip stop. I’m so glad I got to share this special place with my family, and I’d love to share a few photos with you all, too!
Similar to Watercolor, Serenbe is a planned community. Dotted across its 1,000 acres are homes – townhomes, cottages, and larger “estates,” all done in a mash-up of modern/farmhouse/European stylish that somehow works – a few restaurants, adorable shops in little downtown pockets, a farmer’s market and organic farm, stables, nature trails, an Acton Academy school, edible landscaping (blueberries planted along walkways!), a gym and pool complex, and community in-ground trampolines. Everything – and I mean everything, from the trash cans to the real gas lamps lining the streets – is impeccably designed.
Guests can stay in one of the Inn’s 15 rooms, but must be 16+. Options for smaller visitors include the cottages on the grounds of the Inn or staying in a home in the community, which is what we did. (We stayed at the Duck, a 2-bedroom townhome over the wine shop.) All Inn accommodations, including the community homes, include breakfast at the Inn, access to the outdoor pool and 24-hour gym, and other amenities.
We arrived right as check-in opened, at 4pm. After getting our key, directions to our home, and a complimentary flute of champagne (how I’d like to be greeted after every road-trip leg), we drove a few more minutes further into the property and parked in the Selbourne downtown pocket, right in front of our home for the night.
We unloaded our overnight bag and took a quick spin through the accommodations before heading back out to stretch our legs and explore the rolling hills. (I also ducked into the gift shop under our home before we set out, which was tiny but packed and impressively curated.)
Lovely paths and trails criss-cross the property, so it was easy to walk back over to the Inn (across a wildflower meadow!) to visit the animal village. Sheep, donkeys, miniature horses, goats, and pigs were all friendly and willing to be pet. We heard there was complimentary food to tempt them with but didn’t find it.
We bounced on the trampoline, played half a game of chess, swung on the swings, and shot some hoops before walking back to Selbourne for dinner on the patio of The Hill, one of the restaurants in the community.
Though there are fancier options on the menu, we split two pizzas and two salads and they were delicious. Dessert was the chocolate chip cookies the front desk staff had left in our room.
With an hour of sunlight left, we walked over to the hidden playground after dinner. Nestled in the woods, it’s a perfect example of the opportunities for wonder intentionally tucked into every corner of Serenbe. All three kids loved playing on it as well as splashing in the tiny waterfall a few minutes further up the path.
The next morning was rainy, so we drove over to the Inn for breakfast at the Farmhouse. Warm biscuits and jam were brought to the table, and we had our choice of scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, cinnamon brioche French toast with berry compote, bacon, sausage, grits, fresh fruit, bagels and toppings, an oatmeal bar, and more buffet-style. It was very cozy on the glassed-in porch with the rain splashing outside.
After a drippy driving tour through the property so I could ogle at a few more houses, we packed up, turned in our key, and got back on the road. What a dream! It was such a treat to share this special spot with the rest of my family and to reminisce on happy memories.
More from Florida next! :)
P.S. For posterity and in case it helps anyone else, here is what kept our kids busy on this trip:
June (7): Counting trucks on the highway, Sudoku, listening to the first Harry Potter audio book, a paint-by-sticker book, a Mo Willems activity book, and trying to think of all the states so that we could play the license plate game (just the thinking of and writing down states soaked up a good 45 minutes)
April is looking to be a whirlwind month. As you’ll see below, we have several trips planned: a spring break trip to Florida with all of John’s siblings and parents to celebrate his mom and dad’s fiftieth wedding anniversary, and a weekend trip to Asheville to celebrate my sister paying off all of her undergraduate and graduate school student loans.
I love opportunities like these, to celebrate the people I love and to help them feel seen and honored. I’ve also learned that be able to do that as I’d like, and to truly enjoy these moments, I need to give myself plenty of time to prepare – otherwise, I’ll feel stressed in the moment and (more often than not) regret after the fact. I am not a wing-er. This was a hard-won lesson for me, as one of my only regrets in life is that I did not prepare well to toast my older sister at her wedding. So – scratching out toast drafts for my beloved in-laws and plotting ways to fete my adored younger sister is how you’ll find me this month.
Here’s what else is in the plans…
On my calendar this month: — Lots of travel! In addition to Florida and Asheville, I’ll be in Texas for several days for work. — Biking the American Tobacco Trail with a friend. We’ve blocked out a full school day to ride the 44 miles together! — A trip to the WRAL Azalea Gardens when everything’s in bloom.
What I’m loving right now: — I’ll listen to anything Tim Keller says. I so appreciated his piece in The Atlantic about needed revival in American Christianity. — If you love all things powder blue as much as I do, run, don’t walk, to Target. I snapped up four sets of these paper snack plates. — After many years with my beloved bow hat, it is finally looking a little worse for wear. After much deliberation, I chose this hat to be my new sun companion. I’m still getting used to the look, but I think I love it. (Tip: size up – I ordered a small first and had to exchange it for a medium.)
As a reminder, you can find allll the things I’ve loved over the last few years neatly organized right here!
What I read in March: — Girl With a Pearl Earring | I plucked this old favorite from our bookshelf when I was waiting on library holds. It was an interesting re-read… though I still enjoyed it, I found it to be different in feel from many of the novels I read today. More simplistic? I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I suppose it makes sense that what constitutes a popular novel might change in 20 years. — The Odyssey | Like many of you, I read The Odyssey in freshman English. I have fond memories of it (maybe not like many of you, ha). When a friend raved about this first translation in English by a woman, I happily added it to my reading list and pals, it did not disappoint! As one review puts it: “Wilson’s language is fresh, unpretentious, and lean…It is rare to find a translation that is at once so effortlessly easy to read and so rigorously considered.” The introduction and translator’s note at the beginning were lengthy, but fascinating to read – and made me even more impressed by all the work that must have gone into creating this version, which is written in near-perfect iambic pentameter and contains the exact number of lines as the original Greek (!). (And now I want to read Circe next – it only seems appropriate, yes?)
Revisiting my March goals: Cull and sort second half of 2021 photos Paint our master bathroom cabinets (Paint has been purchased! I went with Lehigh Green– seen above!) Tackle the coat closet Meet with a lawyer to update our estate planning documents (Appointment is scheduled for April!) Make a style guide for the EFM book Capture photos of our kitchen and bedroom to share updates
April goals: — Organize our master bath cabinets — Paint our master bath cabinets (will be revisiting this post!) — Complete 2008-2009 in the EFM book — Plan well for our Asheville trip — Send invites for the book swap — Finish the Best of EFM page (bless it, it’s been hanging out in a very unfinished way for months…) — Film Annie in April
As a reminder, many of these are drawn from my 2023 goals!
What are you looking forward to this spring? I’d love to hear!
