Wednesday morning we were back at the beach. I think Wednesday was my favorite beach day of the trip. The weather was great, the kids played really well, it wasn't too crowded, and everyone had an awesome time- so awesome that we stayed for five hours and only left because everyone was starving.
Of course, Katherine started her day with a snack. It was comical how quickly she'd ask for a snack once we were at the beach each day.
The kids got right to work building their sand creations for the day.
Sweet girl needed some snuggles- beach snuggles, they're perfection!!
Elisabeth was proudly serving double dip ice cream cones on Wednesday.
Matt buried me and Katherine in the sand. She loved it and said we were mermaids. She kept asking Matt to turn us into mermaids.
The boys worked for hours on this little creation to funnel water into their "sand pool"
This girl and I spent some time jumping in the waves,
Samuel got in on the ice cream making on Wednesday. He always topped his cones with a seashell.
The boys spent a lot of time on Wednesday riding the waves on their boogie boards. They did it over and over and Matt was such a good dad to tell them yes whenever they asked.
He even took me out once to teach me how to ride the waves. Our kids played so well on the beach and were trustworthy enough to stay on the sand, that we snuck away (sort of, we could still see them the whole time). We were both amazed how independent and grown up all the kids were. They played SO well everyday. We loved joining them in their play, but we also loved some time of relaxing and reading on the beach while they did their thing.
I was most amazed with the way Elisabeth played. She is such a social little girl- always wanting to play with me or her siblings or her friends. She has struggled some with playing by herself, but that girl was in her zone at the beach. She would get deep into her play, talking to herself, executing her plans and completely content at solo play. It was so special and neat to see her play in such a different way and have such a wonderful time in the sand.
Finally, at 1:00 we headed back to the condo to feed some starving kids. They swam while I made lunch and then swam some more before we brought Katherine in for a nap.
We headed over to Orange Beach for another seafood dinner on Wednesday night and stopped at Walmart to pick up some ice cream and root beer for dessert. It was another fantastic day!
Thursday morning was a tough beach day. It was very windy and the waves were extremely rough. Matt wasn't really comfortable with the kids playing in the water that morning, so we just had a sand castle/sand play morning.
Katherine started off with a snack, ha!
Samuel perfected his ice cream!
Katherine had a hard time on Thursday. Matt and I think that maybe she had a nightmare the night before about the waves, but she was terrified of the waves that morning. She cried and was constantly moving our toys farther up on the sand because she would say "They're going to go away in the waves." We had had a few incidents of having to move our stuff farther away to protect from a rogue wave but her compulsion with it and her fear of the waves was heartbreaking. Poor thing. She ended up snuggling up with me and taking about a 45 minute nap on the beach after spending most of the morning crying. Thankfully she fell asleep or we would have had to call it a very early beach day.
We ended up leaving early anyway, because the lifeguards came around and upgraded the flag to a double red flag day because of the water conditions. The double red flag meant the water was completely closed- the kids couldn't even fill up their buckets with water to make sand castles or anything, so when Katherine woke up we called it an early day and headed back to swim for a bit at the pool.
The kids were so excited to see a double red flag. I have no idea why since it pretty much meant we had to leave the beach, but they had to have their picture taken under it, ha!
Since our beach morning got cut short, and Katherine already had her nap for the day at the beach, we decided to drive over to Fort Morgan for a little afternoon outing.
Fort Morgan was built during the War of 1812 and used during the Civil War. The kids had fun running all around exploring and looking at the cannons.
Matt had fun learning about all the history of the fort
We spent a couple of hours at the Fort and then headed to dinner.
After dinner, Nathan said he really wanted to stop at this giant souvenir shop that had a big pirate ship at the entrance. We hadn't really wanted to take them to many stores on our trip, but we stopped for just a minute to pick up a Christmas ornament and pose for a pirate photo.
Then we headed back to the Condo and let the kids have an evening swim before calling it a night.
The Coronavirus really wrecked our Spring plans. Matt and I had an anniversary vacation planned for May that got canceled and all the kids' activities and end of year celebrations were canceled too. Everyone handled it really well, but by the end of April we were all worn out and in need to something fun. So Matt and I went crazy and planned a last minute beach vacation for our family. We had originally planned a beach vacation for the end of the summer, but we decided to move it up because we were all in need of a change of scenery and we're hopeful that maybe by the end of summer more things will be open and we can do a different vacation then.
So at the end of April when beaches on the gulf coast were starting to reopen, we decided to try and plan a trip. That process was full of waiting, drama, and stress. We had to wait to find out what counties would open their beaches, wait for responses on which pools were open at which condos, then had our trip finalized and booked and got word a few days later that the governor of Florida was extending a ban on short term rentals, so a week out we switched out destination to Alabama. It was a mess, but it was SO worth it once we had our toes in the sand!
We kept everything a secret from the kids. Since it was a last minute trip and because everything was so up in the air, we thought it would be fun and better to surprise them. We packed everything while they were at my parents' house and loaded the car after they went to sleep Saturday night. Then we woke them up at 4:00am and told them to go to the bathroom and get in the car that we were going on a trip!!
Once they woke up that morning during our drive, I gave them puzzles to solve to find out where we were going. I do think they all assumed we were going to the beach since they knew about our trip in August.
They were pretty excited when we officially told them!
The kids did amazing during the twelve hour drive. Because most things were still closed, we pretty much drove straight through with only short bathroom breaks and a drive thru for lunch.
We made it to our condo in Gulf Shores about 4:00 on Sunday afternoon. We unloaded the car, ate a quick pizza for dinner and headed to the beach! The kids couldn't change into their swim suits fast enough!
We've always done our family beach vacations in Fort Walton Beach, FL, so I didn't know how the beach in Alabama would be. We're pretty spoiled with our clear blue/green water and powdered sugar sand in Florida, but this was a close second. It definitely wasn't quite as beautiful, but it was close and it was a beach, and we were all in heaven!
Sunday was actually Mother's Day, so Nathan wrote me a message in the sand. Apparently they had big plans to make me a homemade breakfast for Mother's Day, but I don't think anyone (including me) was too disappointed in the change of plans.
We played at the beach for about an hour and then headed back to the condo to change and head out for some ice cream to kick off our vacation! We found a great local place named after Matt, so that was perfect.
The next morning, the kids were up early ready to spend the morning at the beach.
I bought the kids some new sand toys for the trip and I thought this little ice cream set would be cute. It was a hit! They loved making and serving sand ice cream all morning.
The got right after building a sand castle while we waited for the temperature to warm up some to get in the water.
Katherine was the snack queen at the beach. She was always asking for one.
Nathan decided to build Elisabeth an ice cream shop in the sand for her to serve her ice cream cones. He made a seat and a counter and even a sign.
He was so proud of the ice cream stand, and I loved watching their playfulness and creativity come out at the beach.
They played so well in the sand that Matt and I had plenty of time to sit down together and read our books with frequent ice cream breaks of course, ha!
The kids managed to build an ice cream shop and a castle in the same morning.
After lunch we played a couple of board games, while Katherine napped. Then we took baths/showers and cleaned up for dinner. Initially, when we booked our trip we assumed restaurants would still be closed. We were a little bummed about that because we really enjoy fresh seafood and not cooking much on vacations, but we figured we'd get takeout and it would be fine. We were even trying to troubleshoot how to keep Matt's fried shrimp good with takeout and thought about packing our air fryer, ha! But on the Friday before we left, Alabama's governor made an announcement that restaurants could reopen on Monday. Yay! We were ready for some yummy sea food. We did some research and found a great restaurant to try on Monday night.
Matt was pretty excited about his friend seafood platter. Everything was delicious, and the kids behaved pretty well, even after forgetting how to act in a restaurant because it had been so long since we'd been able to eat out.
After dinner we went for a walk and called it an early night after our big beach day. I thought the boys were cute little bookworms ready for bed.
We were ready for another fun day on Tuesday. The kids were up early as usual.
Samuel and Katherine asked to eat breakfast on the balcony every morning.
We were back at the beach around 8:00 on Tuesday ready for more fun.
Nathan tried to catch some waves with the boogie board.
Matt took turns taking the kids out and teaching them how to ride the waves.
Our Little Builder was back at work on another castle.
And there was never a shortage of ice cream. I had fun sitting down with Elisabeth and helping her make desserts for part of the morning.
Another day, another snack break.
There was a cool wind on Tuesday morning and the waves were pretty rough. Elisabeth complained about being cold, and she ended up wrapping up in towels and falling asleep. Sweet girl had had too much fun for the morning.
We headed back to the condo around 11:00 again so the kids could swim/wash off the sand before lunch.
We ate lunch together and talked about our fun morning.
While Katherine napped, the boys and Matt and I played an escape room challenge game. I actually bought two games for Nathan's birthday, and so we brought the extra one on our trip. We were trying to find sunken treasure, so it was perfect to play at the beach.
After Katherine woke up from her nap, we headed out to play putt putt for the afternoon.
Katherine was pretty cute trying to get her ball in the car.
She really was more excited about all the decorations than playing the game. She had to have a picture with the mermaid.
We ate an early dinner at a great Mexican place and then headed back to the condo to change and get ready for beach pictures. I'll share those in a separate post. It's a tradition to take pictures of the kids on every beach trip. It's always stressful trying to get the lighting right, keeping the kids out of the water, and getting them all to cooperate, but every time Matt does his magic and we get awesome photos. This year was no different.
We rewarded the kids with snow cones to finish off our night.
