summer vacay :: destination beach

On Tuesday after the morning craft, we loaded our car back up and headed east towards Orange Beach...



Beautiful as always.  Our beaches are back!  I never saw one sign of oil or tar balls unlike last summer.  I never saw anyone dressed in orange t-shirts scooping up tar.  No smell of oil in the air.

We got checked in here...



...for the second year in a row.  We quickly got settled, made a grocery store run and got our toes in the sand...



Owen favorite sand toy was a red rake.  He raked the sand all week long...



He would get mad when the waves came up and messed up his design.

Mary Reese tested out the water...



...and Owen quickly followed...



He loved it...



Here is proof Banks was still with us...



It was Tuesday.  He had been on antibiotic since Sunday.  He didn't feel close to 100% until at least Wednesday.

As soon as he felt better, he finally mastered his skim board...



Thanks to a couple of other boys and some wax.



He was so excited.  Little brother was taking it all in.  He decided he might need to try it out...



He thought he was big stuff!

Then he decided land boogie boarding was more his speed...



He borrowed these from the next tent over.  That is what I love about the beach.  Everyone becomes friends and shares their toys!

Owen stayed close to shore while the others ventured a little further out...



They made friends with the man in the straw hat.  He fished all week long.  By mid week, I looked up and...



...Banks had is own pole.  The man in the straw hat was nice enough to share!  Sister had to prank him...



...by dumping a little cold water down his suit.

We also caught a few zzz's under the tent with the ocean waves in the background...





Have you noticed Owen's new face...



Every time I point the camera his way, that is the look I get usually accompanied with a "Cheese".  He is such a mess!

I tried to get a group shot of my kids.  This is pretty typical of what I get these days...



...or this...



Maybe one day I will get a decent one of all three.  One where they are all looking at the camera with a normal smile on their face.

We spent the majority of our days on the beach.  On our way up for the day, we would enjoy the lazy river...



...and water slide...



Yes that is Owen leading the pack.  He pushed them away when they tried to help.  He wanted to do it himself...



Sometimes he came down feet first.  Other times head first...

...about a 100 times a day.  I would just reach for a limb and pull him up for a breath.  I had to force him off of it when it was time to go in for the day.

After a hard day on the beach, we would get cleaned up.  Sometimes we decided to dine out, other times we cook seafood in the condo.  The beach and the restaurants were way more packed than last summer.  I checked in at one restaurant and was told the kitchen was backed up an hour and a half.  No thank you!  Some nights we decided it wasn't worth it. 

I did tried to get one picture of the kids cleaned up in clothes.  This is what I got...

Then I got Peaced Out...



I should have known those naps on the beach were too good to be true.  By the last night I noticed Mary Reese wasn't herself.  She missed the annual Dental Meeting firework show on the beach.  I took her temp...



102.8  Nice!  By the time we got home on Sunday, both Mary Reese and Owen were running high fever.  I called the pediatrician's office first thing Monday.  Luckily since Banks tested positive for strep...he just called me in the same medicine to our local pharmacy!  Hopefully by the end of the week we will all be back to normal!

It was a fun time on the beach.  We can't wait for next time.