Traveling to Anna Maria Island

We recently took a mini vacation to Florida. We stayed in Bradenton, about 7 miles from Anna Maria Island, at the house that I inherited from my mother when she died.  We took all 3 kids, my 18 year old cousin and her boyfriend. It was a full car, but we managed the 12 hour drive with little excitement.

The gang at Downtown Disney

Since traffic was backed up around Disney, we decided to stop at Downtown Disney to stretch our legs and get a bite to eat before the final 2 hours of our drive. It was insanely busy, but we enjoyed watching the street performers and walking through the gift shops and, of course, the giant Lego store.

Once in Bradenton we had to do some upkeep on the house my mother left to me and my brother, but we spent most of our free time at Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island. The weather was gorgeous and the water was warm enough to hang out in, unlike the beaches here in North Carolina. The kids built sand castles and kicked the soccer ball on the sand. It was so great!

Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island

If you've never been to Anna Maria Island, it is a small island (about 7 miles long) on the Gulf Coast of Florida, south of Tampa Bay. It's full of vacation rentals, restaurants and small tourist shops. The beach extends the entire western coast of the island. It is a beautiful sandy beach which is kept very clean. At Coquina Beach there is ample parking (except on Easter, which we found out the hard way), grills and picnic tables, life guards and public restrooms. It's a perfect place to spend the day with the family.

If you like to explore, you can rent scooters for an hour or more. We rent from Island Scooter Rentals on Gulf Dr. It's in a great spot and their rates are reasonable. My cousin and her boyfriend rented a scooter for half a day to check out the island. They had to show their driver's licenses and give a credit card for the refundable deposit, but they didn't need any parental permission since they're 18. They opted for helmets, but in Florida it's only required if you're under 16. After a brief training and several practice laps, they were off for 4 hours!

While they scooted, we ate ice cream at Joe's Eats and Sweets. They have a large variety of sundaes that they make with their homemade ice cream. It is a little bit pricey, but so worth it! They have great homemade waffle cones too!

One of my favorite things to do is watch the sunset on Anna Maria Island. Sometimes, as the sun sets below the horizon a flash of green light can be seen...or so I'm told. We held my mother's memorial at sunset on Coquina Beach and it was gorgeous. This may have been our last family trip to Bradenton, but it will always hold a special place in my heart!

Coquina Beach on Dwellable

Anna Maria on Dwellable

Mickey Mouse Birthday Party

My youngest son is really into Mickey Mouse. We took him to Disney World for the first time when he was 4 months old, and then again when he turned 2. He watches Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (MMCH) all the time, and has almost every MMCH toy they make. It's something we indulge because my husband and I are also Disney fanatics! When his second birthday came around we didn't even have to decide on a theme. It would of course be Mickey Mouse, but I didn't want to just do the really commercial MMCH theme that you can get at the party store. I started with some ribbon that I found at Walmart. It is black ribbon with alternating yellow and red Mickeys. That was my inspiration for the whole party. Here is what I ended up with:

For the place settings I used white plastic forks wrapped in black napkins and tied with red ribbon. The plates came from Party city and the hats were left over from a previous party. I went with a plain yellow table cloth to have a solid background for the colorful plates and cups.I used the Mickey Mouse cups to hold the goody bags, which were made from red and yellow tissue paper and tied with red ribbon. Each one had a few Mickey Mouse trinkets like paper, crayons, a bouncy ball and stickers, and I tucked a blowout in each cup to finish them off.

I made the cupcake stand (and the cupcakes) myself. (There is tutorial here.)  You can see the ribbon that inspired me on the top and bottom tiers. I used red and yellow cupcake liners and red and yellow colored sugar on the frosting. To make the cupcake flags, I bought a pack of Mickey Mouse stamp/stickers and cut out a paper square for the back. I put a toothpick in between the layers, and voila!

The birthday boy's cupcake

Can you see the little bowl on right side of the picture? I bought 4 little bowls that matched the black/red/white/yellow color scheme at Homegoods for $10. I filled them with black, yellow, red and white M&Ms. I bought each color separately and then mixed them up in a bag before filling the bowls. It really added a nice touch, and was easier than picking out colors that I didn't want from a regular bag of M&Ms.

For the dessert table, I made a bunch of other goodies, including Mickey shaped sugar cookies and mini cupcakes! I used more M&Ms on this table for color.

For lunch we served Mickey Mouse pb&j's, fruits, vegetables and chips and dip. We also had some mini Hebrew National hot dogs that are always great for parties! Here are the Mickey PB&J's.

The other side of the room was decorated too. We used all of my son's little Disney stuffed animals to decorate the mantle along with a Mickey Happy Birthday banner. We made sure to set up all of the MMCH toys in the living room for the kids to play with.

Here is a picture of the birthday boy before the party with his presents from us and his grandparents.

All in all, the party was a huge success! I can't wait to decide what we're doing next year!