The Beach

This year we got to go back to tradition since there wasn't any oil in the Gulf.  (Not that we couldn't have gone last year...)  Anyway, Robbie has stayed in Orange Beach every single year of his life since he was born for at least a week every summer.  It's been hard, but I have embraced this tradition whole-heartedly. :)  
The highlight of this year's trip is that we got to stay for ten days!  I will not go through each of our days detail by detail.  Instead I'll try to show you how much fun we had in pictures.

All the girls wanted to do the entire time was swim in the pool...

...and ask for snacks.

A sweet friend of a friend came and took beautiful pictures of the girls on the beach.

Thank goodness for Photoshop, because one of the two girls (not mentioning names...) sat on a shell about five minutes into picture-taking and wasn't the same again!

We also played miniature golf.  Robbie's family calls it 'carpet golf.'  I've never heard it called that before!

After dinner that night, we watched "Tangled" on one of the pool decks.  Lots of fun!

A morning and afternoon ritual for Mary Claire was to yell, 'AHOY!' from the condo's balcony at this pirate ship.

I knew after about the fifth morning of hearing MC get so excited, we had to get on this boat!  So the last full day we were on vacation, Robbie and I took the girls to Hudson Marina on what turned out to be a super-fun pirate boat ride!

As soon as we got on board, Ellie got her face painted.  (MC said uh-uh.)

Then both girls got what MC calls 'shooter guns.'  It was a reality check for me because neither of my girls has ever even seen a toy gun!  They LOVED going to each side of the boat and shooting at other boats to 'put holes in them.'  Of course, MC's souvenir from the pirate ship was a 'shooter gun' of her own that now resides in their baby doll's stroller.  How sweet.

They did the limbo, bought drinks with gold doubloons they found, and steered the boat.

Since Grandmama and Granddaddy didn't go on the ride with us, Granddaddy stood on one of the docks of our condo and waved to us!

Oh, the condo.  Sometimes at night I could hear it telling me, "Buy me.  Please buy me!  It's not that long of a drive from Birmingham, and your kids don't really need college."

The pirate boat ride was awesome and we would totally do it again!

Another beach tradition is to ride the ferris wheel at the Wharf.  This year I got to opt out since I'm pregnant.  I don't love the ferris wheel, so I was totally fine to watch!  (Especially when the operator turned it on, then walked away!!)  Ellie was a bit apprehensive at first, and it was funny to watch her little sister coax her onto the ride!

Of course we ate and ate and ate.  I don't have many pictures from restaurants because I was so busy indulging my lovely and large pregnant self in yummy food!

 

I love going back and looking through these pictures because we had such a nice, relaxing trip.  It was back to the grind when we got home, though.  Did y'all know we have a baby coming soon?!  Praise the Lord my mom flew in from Philadelphia the morning after we came home from the beach!  And let me tell you, she was in organizing/purging/rearranging mode.  (It sounds like I'm saying this is a negative thing, but I really have been praying for a kick in the buns to get these things done, so her trip was a blessing!)  Her trip will get a blog post soon!

AS ALWAYS, a tremendous thanks to Bob and Mary for taking on vacation each year!  Y'all are the best!!