Beach 2008

 

A total blast! That's the only way to describe our beach vacation that we took two weeks ago. We've never vacationed at the beach at the beginning of fall, and we've decided that this is the way we'll do it from now on. We had the most fabulous time. We drove down on a Wednesday and spent the night with my dad. He and Betty kept Grant and Ali Kate while we vacationed. Major thanks to them. It would not have been a vacation if we had taken the two babies with us. That was the first time in almost five years that I didn't have a baby with me for a few days. Wow...that's a vacation in and of itself.

The girls had never been to the beach before, and they loved it all. They were taken with the sand more than anything else. We arrived late afternoon Thursday since we took our time enjoying the trip there. We ate Mexican at a place near Mobile where the lovebugs were in mating season. Hundreds on our bumper by the time we arrived in Florida. Gross!
Anyway, we put the essentials in the condo and checked it out before we headed in our travel clothes down to the shore. Abby and Isabella were so excited. I may have actually been more excited than they were. I love the beach, and it's been a while since we've been. Every summer I've either been pregnant or delivering a baby it seems...so we haven't been since 2004.

We spent our trip soaking up the sun in nice 80 degree weather. We splashed in the pool plenty too. Abby and I actually raced one another and swam laps in the pool together. So much fun. We were diverted out of the water for two days due to a large population of jellyfish that wanted to hang out by the shore. We saw several gigantic (at least gigantic to me) jellyfish. After about the fifth one, I decided to exit the water for the rest of the day. We just enjoyed looking at it until we got green flags on Sunday. The beach was busiest that day I think since people could get in the water.

We ate twice at Mellow Mushroom Pizza Co., one of our Destin favorites. We also dined at Fudpuckers, and I was thoroughly disappointed. Overpriced and not very good this go round. We cooked alot in the condo which was fun, and we rented movies one night. The condo had some very nice flat screen TVs, so the girls watched their movie in the bedroom while we watched ours in the living room. We never do that. We had pajamas and popcorn, a Stine family favorite. Everyone in our house loves that! We played LeapFrog games as a family, and we did a little outlet shopping too.

Matt and I really wanted to stay for so many more days, but I was dying to get back to Grant and Ali Kate. I knew they were in good hands, but I wanted them back for myself. I missed them so much! We did go back refreshed and recharged, ready to greet real world life again! Now we're recruiting volunteers to keep the babies next year so that we can do it again!