Destin Vacation

Our Summer is finally coming to a close. We packed the car, strapped a bunch of stuff to the top, and drove 11 hours to the most amazing beach on the Gulf Coast.... Destin Florida. Everyone around here talks about how beautiful the water is and how amazing the white sand beaches are (the sand actually squeaks when you walk on it). Well, now I know why, and I can't stop going on about it either. Why did we wait so long to go???? Why did we only stay a week??? When can we go back??? It was the perfect vacation for our family!!!!

We lazed around the house every morning, ate lunch and finally got out of our pj's and headed to the beach. We buried Ethan neck deep in the sand about one hundred times. Alex only liked it up to his chest, and Gwynn would always throw sand at there heads just as soon and there arms were immobilized (sneaky little thing). Alex and Gwynn were pretty content playing on the shore but Ethan wanted to be out in the water, I mean WAY OUT in the water. Brad had an obsession with finding shells. Every time I turned around he was missing. Swimming out with a net, coming back with some strange sea creature. Ethan just wanted to be by his dads side the whole time. We found sand dollars, dead and alive, tiny little clams, tons of hermit crabs, even a baby horse shoe crab. There were a few things we couldn't identify. The one down side to our trip was all of the jelly fish in the water. You really couldn't see them so we got stung a lot. Which wasn't as bad as one would think, but definitely unpleasant. I offered to pee on Ethan to make it feel better but he decided to tough it out, hee hee. (Mortified about the idea of his mother dropping trow in public, I think) What a brave boy.

We even drove down to Panama City Beach and visited St. Andrews State Park. (My Dad would be so proud). From there you can take a ferry across to Shell Island. This island is just a little undeveloped Sand Bar that gets tons of amazing and big shells on it. It is less protected than the beaches of Destin, so more shells. Unfortunately nobody tells you that these shells only appear after a summer storm and there hadn't been a storm for over a month. Ethan kept calling it Sand Island and I would have to agree. They did have a great time riding the bus over to the docks and getting on a boat. Good family day.

We cooked at home for almost every meal and did visit a few tourist traps, but all in all it was the perfect beach vacation. The most challenging part was the drive home. Gwynn was a total pill and pretty lucky we didn't leave her at a rest stop in Alabama!!! We were afraid people would think we kidnapped her because she was screaming so loud at the gas stations. We have also discovered that Gwynn has great eye sight. On the way out she didn't miss one McDonalds sign. Every time we would pass one she would yell "YEAH, Donalds". They obviously need to give there marketing director a raise!!!

One of the highlights of the trip was lunch in Slydell LA. I called up a friend that I had met on the Internet. Margie, who lives in Mississippi drove down to meet us for lunch. Margie and I became friends on a waiting families web group and had never met in person but have know each other for about two years. Her Daughter Lilli is from a bordering province in China. Lilli is something else. Total adorable and full of laughs. We really enjoyed meeting them both and look forward to them coming to our part of Texas.

The shear ecstasy of eating some'mores. Don't we all feel that way!!!

Brad is taking a break from his shelling expeditions

This is called time out at the beach.

Lunch date with Margie and Lilli, Oh yea, Brad, Ethan, Alex and Margie's other daughter Savanah were there too. By the way, Savanah is just as adorable as Lilli, but older so you can't make as big a deal out of it, hee hee.