Destin ~ 2012

Last week we enjoyed a nice time in Destin. This was our fourth year staying in the same place. Previously we stayed in the same condo as my parents but this year the four of us got our own condo. It is fun to all share one condo together but it was nice to have our own place to go this year too. We left late Saturday evening and arrived in Destin around midnight. We thought for sure the kids would sleep at least some of the way down…wrong! They did not fall asleep at all. As soon as we arrived we all went to bed. Sunday morning we were all up early and ready to see the ocean. Unfortunately there had been a storm on Saturday that brought with it a ton of seaweed. The water and sand were covered. This didn’t stop us though. In fact, the seaweed never left the beach and there were only a couple of days of clear water but we enjoyed it none the less.

See the big dark spot out in the water? That is a huge section of seaweed making its way to land.

Sunday, Becca and Tommy arrived. We decided it would be a good night to go out to eat because Tommy was only able to stay the one night. They had already been in Florida for a long weekend and he had to get back home.

To be honest, there were not a whole lot of pictures taken on this trip. Most of these are from my phone. I tried to take at least one picture every day.

Reese and Sam both got very brave and ventured out in to the water to play quite often. Sam loved every moment of being in the water. He would let the waves crash in to him and ride them back to land. He was so fun to watch. They both played very hard in the mornings and then we would come in for lunch.

Our original plan was to just enjoy each day and let the kids skip naps. After the second day of Sam falling asleep after lunch on the couch, we decided the little buddy needed his naps. And quite honestly we all needed that down time too.

Wednesday was the best ocean day out of all of the days. The water was like a pool. It was crystal clear and so calm. We were able to enjoy that morning with my grandparents who made the trip down on Tuesday. They spent a couple of days with us and the kids had so much fun with them.

This is Sam in the waves on Wednesday:

Thursday was Reese’s birthday. This year we got smart and bought one of those disposable helium tanks. We blew up balloons the night before and had them in the living room when Reese woke up.

We invited everyone to our room for breakfast and presents before heading out to the beach.

Reese was so excited to get to open her gifts. After months of talking about it, she finally got her very own American Girl doll. We had looked around at all of the options. There was one doll that had curly hair like Reese’s but she decided she wanted one with straighter hair so that she could brush and play with it. Lance and I weren’t quite sure if she would really play with this doll but she has surprised us with the amount of time she has spent brushing her hair, changing her clothes, and playing with her.

Reese and Megan (Reese picked this name out a while back for her and it stuck)

After presents were opened, we headed out to the beach. We knew it would be a short day outside so we were out there early.

After playing for a while, we came in for lunch and naps. That evening we planned to go to Baytowne Wharf because Reese had been begging to jump on the big trampoline after seeing some friends do it on the fourth of July. But first we needed to sing “Happy Birthday” and eat some before dinner cupcakes with the birthday girl.

After cupcakes, we made our way to Baytowne Wharf and headed straight for the “Jumpy Thing”. Twelve dollars later, Reese was strapped in and ready to go.

She was pretty nervous leading up to it but she wanted to jump so bad. Most of the time her face looked like this…

But we got a few smiles out of her during the jump. She didn’t try anything crazy and she didn’t go too high but she said she had a lot of fun.

Once that was marked off our to do list we walked around for a while. We went out to the dock and had our pictures made once again. It is so pretty out there!

This is my favorite picture of Sam that was taken.

Papa, Granddaddy, and Grammy

My parents and Becca…Leah wasn’t able to come this year and we missed her and Susan so much!

All of us

Last month Reese wore this dress to a wedding that we attended. My dad told her he had an outfit that would match it and that they should both wear them at the beach. When I was packing clothes, she made sure several times that I packed the dress so that she could match Granddaddy.

Sam was being super silly with my dad while my mom was taking their picture. When we tried to take the picture he stared at out camera with out a smile…stinker!

All five of us…

All of this picture taking was just killing time until it was time for our dinner cruise. We thought we would do something a little different this year instead of eating in one of the restaurants we had been to before. The kids were super excited about having dinner on the boat.

After dinner there was dancing and fireworks. The kids loved both equally, I think.

They were such little hams.

After the fireworks, dessert was served. During dessert the music was still playing and the Cha-Cha Slide came on. Reese and Sam both got up and started dancing to it. Reese knows the moves and Sam just tries to imitate Reese. Neither of the kids noticed that everyone in our dining room had stopped to watch them dance. When it was over, every single person in there started clapping and both kids ran back to the table embarrassed. I wish I had it on video because it was too cute! On the way back to the condo that night both kids fell asleep. They had a busy and fun night.

Friday morning every one slept in. We woke up to rain and a yucky looking day. Lance and I decided that we would go ahead and get everything packed up and see how the weather looked after that. We were not scheduled to leave until Saturday morning but if Friday was going to continue to be a yucky day we were going to go ahead and leave.

It stopped raining for a while so we took the kids out to the beach. Lance walked with Reese out to about knee level in the water and decided the current was too strong to go in. He took the kids to the pool to play for a little while and I stayed at the beach under the umbrella with my parents and Becca for a little longer. We finally decided that we would leave around 2:00 (Destin time) and head back home. We all missed sleeping in our own beds and we had some things back home that we needed to do. We were home by 9:00 and the kids were in bed by 9:30. Saturday morning we were so happy that we had made that decision.

It is always nice to get away but it is always nice to come back home too!