Sandy Toes and Salty Kisses

Kieth and I decided to take a vacation this year. With the exception of traveling to North Carolina to visit family, we have never been on a long trip all together with our kids. Dakota will be 15 in a few days and before I turn around again, he will be graduating high school. So, I thought we better take a little family vacation. The kids and I have never been to the ocean, so we decided to go to Gulf Shores. We got the van all packed up and had intentions of leaving at 2:00 on Saturday morning, but somehow we overslept and didn't end up leaving until around 6:30. In all the confusion, we left without getting map quest directions, so we had to stop in Memphis and call Lesli to get directions. We were told that the trip should only take about 9 or 10 hours. But after 5 bathroom stops, 3 food stops, 2 Wal-mart stops, and 1 minor detour, we finally arrived almost 13 hours later. Hey, that's how we roll.

On Father's Day we went to the beach bright and early in the morning. It was everything I hoped it would be. The sand was cool sugar white, the waves were crashing on shore, and the seagulls were soaring overhead. The boys went wild. They loved playing in the waves and discovering all the sea life. I didn't enjoy discovering the sea life too much because it kept touching me. I ventured out to my knees, but that's as far as I could go. I'm scared of sharks in the lake, so can you imagine when there really are sharks somewhere. My level of fright was in the red zone. The boys on the other hand had no feelings of fear or reservation. They were really good at catching the hermit and sand crabs. I had to caution them many times about going out too far, but eventually I gave up and took a chill pill. But, I did watch for shark fins like a hawk.

After we got finished at the beach everyday, we would go to the pool at the condo. Hunter loved all the attention he got from the little girls. He would scoot up next to them in the pool and ask them their names. Then he would come running to me and say, "mom, how old I am"? Then he would go back and tell them his age. He was trying to teach them how to do a cannonball and they would whine, "Hunter, is this how you do it"? He would say "no" and then show them for the hundredth time the right way. One lady that was there the week we were commented that other people may have had fun this week, but no one had more fun than Hunter.

In the evenings we would go back to the beach and look for crabs. They mostly came out at night. The boys would use their flashlights to spot them and then catch them in the net. Hunter ran all over that beach after the little sand crabs. They were fast, but not too fast for him. We let them all go, but I guess people were catching them to eat them. One word. GROSS. The boys loved playing in the sand too. We had such a great uncrowded portion of the beach. There were a couple of people farther down, but no one even close to us. The boys took turns burying each other and then making sand castles.

One of our favorite parts of the trip was looking for seashells. We finally learned a good technique to grabbing them before the waves took them off again. We found some magnificent shells. They are mostly small, but still beautiful. On our last day there, we were at the beach as usual in the morning and we saw a group of dolphins playing about 30 yards away. I was trying to get to my camera when one decided to put on a show and jump up out of the water and twist around 3 or 4 times. By the time I got ready to take a picture, he was finished playing. Oh well, we will remember it forever in our minds. We had such a wonderful time. The entire trip completely exceeded my expectations, and I have high expectations. It was fun to get away, but it was equally as fun to get back home. We missed our family and animals and were glad to see that none of our fish died. Here are some of the 200 pictures I took. I hope you enjoy them.