Family Vacation Part 2

Yesterday I talked a little bit about shopping at Destin Commons. Below are a couple of pictures from one of the days we were there.

This is after going to Godiva
This was in one of the sunglasses stores. I know that is really obvious,
but you just never know. I would like to note here, that she did not get
that $250 pair of sunglasses. Although she really liked them and I think
she looks really cute in them!!
There are other things to do besides shop and look for dolphins (that I mentioned yesterday). This year we went back to one of the places that the kids enjoyed the most the last time we were in Destin. It is a miniature golf place that also has kiddie rides. Nathan and Reagan both love mini golf and Nathan is really getting good at it, for his age.

Before we started, the kids wanted to get their picture taken with this big gorilla.

Along the course, they found other statues to pose with. Nathan really loves elephants, and had to have a picture with this baby elephant. Reagan didn't want to be left out.

What would a golf course through the "Jungle" be without some fish?

Finally, what would mini golf be without someone getting upset? This actually made two people upset because she through a tantrum, but nobody takes pictures of Daddy when he is upset. She cleared her attitude up within a couple of holes, but those were some frustrating holes.


After mini golf, we decided to let the kids ride the kiddie rides. Both Nathan and Reagan remembered riding this train the last time and really wanted to ride it again. The enjoyed ringing the bell every time they circled by us.

The only other ride that they rode together was the carousel. It was hard getting them both to look at the camera at the same time, so this ended up being the best picture we could get.After the carousel, Nathan and I rode the bumper boats. Reagan really wanted to ride this also, but she was too short. I was in charge of driving while Nathan sprayed the water. It was a little difficult at times to steer since the button to shoot the water is on the steering column. Nathan would tell me to turn the other direction as he pulled the steering column towards him. It was a blast.

While we rode the bumper boats, Reagan went and rode one of her favorite things. The swings. I can't watch her ride these, because they make me sick, so it was great that Sharon was able to take her while Nathan and I were busy.

One ride that Nathan rode that Reagan would not get on is the Ferris Wheel. She was going to ride, however when the operator told her she couldn't ride in the same car as Nathan she lost all interest. After the kids had their fun, it was time for Daddy to have some fun. This fun still included the kids, but I was the driving force behind it. After all what would a trip to The Track be without a trip around the track. My parents went to Florida with us, so my dad got the privilege of driving the car that Reagan rode in.

While Nathan had the privilege of riding in my car. He also had the privilege of winning since he was in my car. We passed so many people and never let anyone pass us. It was so much fun!!!
After a long day of fun, there is only one thing left to do. That is eat. In Destin there are so many unique places to eat. We ate at most of them. One of the places we ate at is a restaurant named FudPuckers. The kids loved eating here, although Nathan's face may not show it. This picture is from the second time we at there. The first time it was pouring down rain and so pictures were not happening that day.

There were a couple of things Reagan liked about this restaurant, but the one thing we couldn't get her away from without a picture was this Indian. She was completely fascinated by it.

The main attraction for FudPuckers though is their "collection" of live alligators that you can feed. They claim to have over 50, although we never counted more than 30. Here is a picture of some.

Yes they are small. What did you expect? They are in a restaurant!! Along with feeding them, you can actually hold one and get you picture taken with them. We did not do this. They tape the mouth shut so you won't get bit, but Sharon doesn't care to get any closer to them than we were at the point in the picture above.

On the last full day we were in Destin, I woke Nathan for a special treat. He wasn't too excited to be woken up at 6:00 in the morning, but he came around. The treat was a guys only trip to a secluded beach to search for sea shells. He loved it!!! For the record, we brought back enough shells for Reagan, but since Reagan enjoyed the shopping more than Nathan, I wanted to do something special for him.

When we got to the beach, we were a little disappointed with the number of shells we were seeing. The picture below shows the number of shells we saw in one small area close to the entry point of the beach.

We didn't let this get us down. We walked and walked and walked for a long time down this empty beach. Finally, we found this:
These shells were all in a smaller space than the first picture and look at the number. We called this area the shell grave yard. It was a very large area that was a ways down the beach, but well worth the walk. We found all sorts of different shells of various shapes and colors. I haven't taken pictures of them, but if I remember I will try to do that and blog about them. The picture below is of Nathan picking up some shells here.
After almost an hour of looking in this one area, we decided it was about time to head back and get some breakfast. We had plenty of shells. The trip back was more fun for Nathan because he wasn't focused on finding shells so he just played in the water.

By the time we got back to the car, his feet were hurting because of being in the sand for over two hours, but he said he wouldn't change it for anything. The memories of that morning are priceless.

The last two evenings we were there, we decided to take pictures on the beach. When you leave the beach you have to wash the sand and salt off, so here is a picture of Reagan washing the sand off her feet.

This is a picture of the woman I love with me. I mentioned yesterday that she got some sun on her face and you can kind of see where her sunglasses were.

What would a family vacation be without a family picture. The lens was fogged up a little because of the humidity. We should have let the camera get acclimated before taking the pictures, but what fun would that have been?

The last picture is how I like to remember the vacation as a whole. I can't say it any better.

Family Vacation

I have talked a lot in past blogs about how I was going to try to do better and blog more frequently. I think I am done making that "promise" because I am the worst person in the world when it comes down to blogging. I have great intentions but do a really bad job of following through. Today's blog is not to talk about that though, it is to talk about something that I view as a great success. I am blogging about my family vacation that occurred less than two months ago.

Our vacation took us to a favorite spot of ours. For the third time in the last four years we went to Destin, Florida. Specifically we stayed at the Surfside Resort in the Marimar Beach area, right outside the Destin city limits. The picture below shows the condo building we always stay in.


The day we arrived, a tropical storm was churning in the gulf and the forecast was for rain almost the entire time we were there. As you can see in the picture below, the clouds were already moving in.

Fortunately, the first full day we were there was the only day that it rained. That left us with views like the one below for the rest of our stay.

With weather that nice, there are several things that you can do, and as you will read later we did other things, BUT the most fun thing to do at the beach is to get in the water. Both of the kids loved the water, but even more than that they loved to get out into the deeper water and have the waves hit them. I would not let them get out into the water without me, so I had one in each hand.

We would let them play in the water by themselves a little, but they were not allowed to go out very far. As you can see in the picture below knee high to Reagan was about the limit without me being with them, but they still had a blast. Nathan was trying to sit down in the waves and a couple of them surprised him and knocked him backwards.

When I was ready for a rest, Sharon and I would sit under the umbrella provided for us and watch the kids play in the sand. We didn't get pictures of the best day where we buried Nathan and Reagan in the sand, but there were other fun pictures. In the picture below, the kids are trying to get water in Frisbees that they had gotten from a restaurant the day before. We forgot to take any of the dozen sand buckets we had at home and kept forgetting to buy new ones.

There is only one downside to all of the fun in the sun. That down side is seen in the picture below. That is my lower back that was burned, and despite what I told my wife, it hurt pretty bad. It was well worth it to make those memories with my kids though. As you will see in some of the pictures later on, Sharon got some sun on her face. It is most noticeable because she had her sunglasses on.

I mentioned earlier that there were other things to do on nice sunny days. One of those things is shop. We did our share of that on this trip, but specifically we like a mall called The Destin Commons. This mall has most places that the kids like to shop such as Build-A-Bear Workshop, The Croc Store, Godiva Chocolate and a really neat toy store, but I don't remember its name. It also has a movie theater. That is where we took the kids to see Brave. Nathan loved the movie, but Reagan was asleep half an hour into it. The other part of the mall that we really like are the fountains. It is so much fun for the kids to be able to get out an play in them, especially on a hot day after a couple of hours of shopping. At first Reagan didn't want to play. There were several kids there, but I didn't want pictures of them. So, Nathan was out playing in the fountains by himself. Then he made friends with a couple of boys who were there and they started playing together. He is so outgoing it is crazy. I don't know where he gets that!!!

Finally, Reagan decided that she wanted to get in on the fun and play in the fountains. While she was there playing, there was another girl about her age who might as well have not had anything on because of the size of her "swimsuit" if you want to call it that. It wasn't decent enough to take a picture. I'm not going to get on my soapbox about that right now though. Most importantly, we all had fun there.

One of the other days we decided to take a Dolphin cruise. The last time we were in Destin we took a Dolphin cruise, but Reagan wasn't old enough to remember it, so we thought it would be nice for here to see the dolphins. This trip wasn't as much fun for me. I spent most of my time standing in lines like in the picture below.

First, the kids got to feed Sea Gulls off the back of the boat, then the kids wanted to get something to eat and drink. What was a dad to do, but wait in line? We were on a boat with about 50 other people. Ultimately, we stood in line for the best part of the trip. Nathan got to drive the boat. The picture below might look like a prop, but the captain just to the left of the window had to keep telling Nathan not to turn the wheel. He was so excited about driving the boat!!!
On the trip we did see Dolphins. Well, let me clarify, they all saw Dolphins. I got to see the pictures. After buying food and drinks, someone had to sit down and hold them all. It was okay though, because the family had a great time. Ultimately that is all that matters.

I was going to write about some of the other things we did on our vacation, but they will have to wait for now. Hopefully, I will be able to blog about those tomorrow. For now, that is the first part of our Family Vacation.