Late last year, I uprooted my life and moved out to Birmingham, AL, for my dream job. I’m now the Style Editor for Country Living and Veranda magazines, and while I love what I do everyday, I definitely miss all of my friends and family back home in Texas. So for my birthday this year, I decided to plan a trip to catch up with some of my best friends. Lucky for me, Olivia’s birthday is the day after mine, so we decided to make a weekend out of it and invite our friends Natalie, Andy, and Ross to come along for a trip to one of our favorite places on earth - Seaside, FL!
We rented the cutest little condo in this beach house on the edge of Watercolor. It had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a bunk room (for me!), a spacious living and dining room, and two porches that we spent most of our time on. After a rainy first night, we woke up the next morning, rented bikes, and headed to The Black Bear Bread Co. to get some breakfast. We got biscuit sandwiches, croissants, açai bowls, and lots of coffee.
The weather was perfect all weekend! Not too hot, not too chilly, and sunny skies all day long. I feel like late April is the best time to go to Seaside — right in between the spring break crowd and the summer vacationers. We spent the rest of the day by the beach. Our house came with a beach cart and beach chairs, which was such a lifesaver. Olivia got me this super cute otomi beach float for my birthday, and Natalie and I blew it up all by ourselves! We also ordered these custom birthday cups and loved using them for drinks all weekend.
For my birthday happy hour, we drove out to Rosemary Beach and got drinks and appetizers at The Pearl. It was such a pretty set up with lots of outdoor seating, a fire pit to keep us warm when the sun went down, and yummy summer cocktails. I happened to have a credit from Rent The Runway and ordered this dress to wear for the occasion. Natalie and I are obsessed with Joie and we loved this dress so much that we both wanted to keep it.
The next morning, we biked to Seaside square and stocked up on our favorite t-shirts and sweatshirts from The Seaside Style. I’ve been wearing the same turquoise sweatshirt from them for the past five years, and let me tell you, there were more than a few holes in it! I grabbed a mini donut from Five Daughters Bakery and then we walked around the square as all the shops were opening. There was a farmers market and live music playing all morning too!
Once again, we spent the day by the water and then came back up to the square to get grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch from The Meltdown. They were sooooo good! We couldn’t believe how hungry we were from running around outside all day. Later that night, we got cleaned up and headed out to Rosemary again for dinner at Pescado, where Olivia wanted to celebrate her birthday. We got some fun cocktails and a delicious seafood spread for dinner while overlooking the water.
For our last morning in Seaside, Olivia and I wanted to just bike around the town and check out all of the cute houses. We filled up on brunch at The Great Southern Cafe and then let ourselves get lost around Seaside proper. We loved searching for the houses with the most clever names and seeing all the different styles of architecture. We can’t wait to come back someday and have summerhouses of our own in Seaside.
