It’s no secret that we take our vacations around here pretty seriously. And by seriously, I mean epic.

Brian and I have been to the Florida Keys a couple of times before. But we had never taken the kids to swim in the shallow, warm, crystal clear South Florida waters that we love so much. So, this summer the Buffs went South.

Here’s something you may remember from our travels last year. If you want to travel somewhere epic on a budget…camp. So, to absolutely no-one’s surprise, we camped. We found a cute little spot at Long Key State Park.

Y’ALL. We love the Keys. So much. But we will never ever camp there again in July. October or March, yes. But, July? NO. NOT EVER. IT WAS JUST SO FREAKING HOT. And we were in a tent. Every night. After our first night of sweating and whining and complaining and not sleeping at all, we went to the trusty KMart down the road to purchase a fan. The beautiful, magnificent, glorious fan made the hot nights more bearable. And I smiled a little brighter when I woke up to this view.

And when we needed a break from the brutal mid-day heat, we went out for lunch. We may or may not have found ourselves at Burdine’s in Marathon TWICE. It was that good. Also, fried key lime pie. No picture though, because we demolished it like scavengers.

And the obvious way to stay cool. Even though the water was all of 87 degrees.

Another sensible way to combat the Florida heat: Watermelon.

We started out our crazy fun day in Key West exploring Fort Zachary Taylor.

And because walking and sweating burned so many calories, chocolate covered key lime pie from Mattheessen’s. If you are ever in Key West, make this happen. It will change your life.

And because you have to follow something sweet with something salty and epicly yummy (did I just make up a word?). Conch fritters. These are literally the only conch fritters we’ve found that could even remotely rival Roberta’s on Green Turtle Cay. This fella here at the pink conch stand knows what’s up.

Sometimes when you’re walking the streets of Key West, you get suckered into touristy things like this. We didn’t hate it. Obviously.

Tired children. What all parents on vacation strive for.

The evening on Mallory Square made a great day even better. The sun sets and the artists and dreamers all come out to perform and create and entertain. These people work hard to perfect their craft. They are creatives, doing things they love and making it work, living right smack in the middle of the beauty that is the Florida Keys.

We chartered a fishing trip from Marathon on The Marathon Lady. It was so cool to see the fish swimming all around the boat. Even cooler, was watching Jet’s face as he reeled in his catch.

Not quite as cool, when this baby got a tad bit sea sick.

After the fishing trip, the crew sorted and cleaned the fish for us. We just had to take them back to camp and cook them.

But, alas. The vacation couldn’t last forever. Also, I needed air conditioning. DON’T JUDGE ME, OK?! Our little spot on Long Key was beautiful and amazing and fun. It was a place where we sweated profusely and swatted at bugs every evening, but it was also a place where we smiled and laughed and danced. It was a place we made memories.If you want to see more of our vacation in action, check out the video my hubs, Brian, made below!

xo | Brooke