The Great Kalahari Family Getaway & a GIVEAWAY!

It sure has been awhile since I posted in this super important family memory keeper of ours.  I blame it on Instagram.  It has sadly been a replacement blog for the last couple of months while we have been busy busy bees.  But no worries, I only have 1,972 photos to edit and post to catch up on the EndOfSummerBeginingOfFallNowIt'sWinter....

Speaking of Instagram, if you follow me, you may have seen these incredible photos this past weekend!

Since I blog for a living, it got me invited to a local Mommy Blogger event hosted by the Kalahari Resorts in Wisconsin Dells!  We travel there at least once per year {if not more}, since it gets nice and cold here and it's the perfect place to getaway and play in the warm waterpark and theme park!  It is definitely our happy place, so when we received the invite to hang out there for the weekend with other blogging families, we happily accepted! {you can read more about our last visit here}

Pretty incredible right?

Kalahari is Wisconsin's largest waterpark and includes something to do for everyone, of all ages!  That is why it works for our crazy family of five!  My oldest hits up the mega slides while my middle guy goes surfing!  And my youngest has endless hours of toddler play areas to roam!  It's a family paradise!

We spent the majority of the day within the waterpark.

But they also have this insanely incredible indoor theme park, which is truly every kid's fantasy!

Go Karts, Ferris Wheel, Mini Golf, Climbing Wall, Laser Tag, Bowling, an Arcade and Rope Course, there was SO much to do!

It was a good thing we had two days.  Or we never would have been able to do it all!

The indoor Ferris wheel is one of our favorite things to do.  It is tradition to hit it up and snap a bunch of family photos!

One of the above and beyond things they offered us, was the experience of making our own pizzas...

And then heading over to the fire for a reading of the Kalahari book, "Are We There Yet?"

The kids {and US!} were so tired, that after the reading, we went back to our room and fell right to sleep...

The Kalahari wanted to offer up a great deal to my readers, so you can head over to their site here and check out their specially reduced rates and packages.

They are also giving a night away!  That's right, a FREE night stay in a Hut or Desert Style Room with complimentary indoor theme park passes {for up to four guests} in the Wisconsin Dells!  I also have an additional four indoor theme park passes to give away as well!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We really can't thank the sweet friends over at the Kalahari for the incredible experience and for allowing us to take a break from the cold and holiday chaos to get away with our family.

We made so many new memories that we will forever cherish!

floridian fun

10 years ago and almost a year after Preston was born, Bryan and I decided that we needed to take a break from work and parenting and everything else that life was handing us, and we set off for a week long vacation in sunny Mexico.  That week of leaving reality and just enjoying one another was a really important moment in our relationship, and we decided that it needed to become a new tradition.  Not necessarily jet setting off to Mexico, but flying somewhere, just the two of us, and leaving work and kids behind.  Since it's a bit of an expensive tradition, we have learned to spread it out and only travel once every two years and find ways to make it a little less harsh on the pocket book. We did head back to Mexico again when we found a great deal, and have also traveled with friends a few times to play in Orlando and L.A and San Fransisco area.  It's been two years since our last romantic getaway, so when the opportunity to stay at a friend's home down in the Tampa/Sarasota area came up, we jumped all over it!

We hopped on an airplane at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday morning and began our flight to Miami and then hopped on another flight to Tampa {hey, a quickie layover saved us $400 on airfare!}.

As soon as we arrived in Tampa, our tummies were rumbling, so I used Google maps to locate a restaurant on the beach.

This is quite the change in scenery from our typical Wisconsin weather and beaches and I was already stress free and smiling!

Our first day there consisted of cruising around just checking out the area and learning our way around the surrounding cities.  We finally arrived to our destination and fell asleep extremely early like the old boring folks we are.

Getting a good, peaceful, long rest was nice since we woke up feeling extremely refreshed and excited to head over to Anna Maria island to check out the beach!

We soaked up the sun and grabbed some grub!

As much as I figured I would just lay on the beach all day every day for four straight days, I got bored after about three hours and we decided to take a little road trip down the Longboat Key...

We ate at a local oyster bar that evening and must have been tuckered out from the sun and fun so we again called it an early night.

The following day we went back to the same beach and laid around for a few hours again.  I really wanted to explore the lovely waters so we chartered a boat at a local fishing/boating company which supposedly has the best fresh seafood in the entire area....

We got pretty lucky with the boat charter, we were the only two on the session we booked so we basically received a private tour of the entire area.  We first stopped on a sandbar to look for sand dollars and other cool water creatures.

Of course we just oooohed and aaahhhed and returned them back to the lovely waters.

I mentioned to the captain of the boat that I had never seen dolphins in their natural environment; she decided to change that!

That night we checked out the Sandbar Restaurant on Anna Maria island.

The food was delish and we watched the sunset on the beach which was absolutely breathtaking!

On Sunday we thought it would be fun to check out a few new beaches, so we went down to the famous Siesta Key beach.  We couldn't find parking so I decided that wasn't for me.  A few beaches down was Turtle beach and it was fairly quiet which is more to my liking.

We enjoyed a really fabulous lunch in downtown Sarasota and then did some walking around to check out some of the city.

We headed back to enjoy some ice cream and watch another beach sunset.

Monday was the last day of our quick little getaway, and we wanted to hit the water one last time before flying out, so we rented a jet ski and hit the waves of the gulf.

Although I didn't bring my camera, we did happen to have Bryan's cell phone on us to capture some fish which we originally thought were small dolphins until we got closer and realized they were just hungry giant fish.

Jet Skiing on the Gulf from Jen Jones on Vimeo.

I got pretty freaked out and we got out of there fast!

We flew out later in the day so we were able to take advantage of our final day there, but I couldn't wait to get home to my boys.  Five full days away was just enough time to get our fill of relaxation, work free stress free alone time in before heading back to our crazy awesome life back home.