Beach vacation!!

I realized something. My baby boy is so spoiled! He is only 2 and he’s been to the beach now 3 times in his life (4 times if you count while I was pregnant with him)?! I guess that’s what happens when you have a momma that loves the beach like I do!! I just can’t stay away for longer than a year- most of the time I find a way to go more often than that?! In the past 10 years I think I have gone at least once a year (sometimes more) except for 1 year. I have now been to the beach during both pregnancies, too?!  Haha! There’s nothing like that smell and the sound of the waves crashing. . . ahhhh, I sure do love it!

We had such a good time on vacation. Stratton was pretty good, for the most part. And the weather was awesome (for once) most days. We stayed at a condo in Orange Beach and it was on the smaller side, but it worked fine. We have been to Gulf Shores/Orange Beach at pretty much every time of the year- but so far this trip was the best as far as weather and it wasn’t crowded at all! I think we will plan to go back this time next year!

Wednesday:: Left Jonesboro around 4pm. Stopped for supper along the way and made it to Jackson, MS by 9pm. Checked into our hotel and hit the hay!!

Thursday:: We were in no hurry to get up early, since we couldn’t check into our condo till 3pm, we ate breakfast at the hotel and took our time getting ready. We left Jackson around 10am. Had lunch in Hattiesburg, and made it to Orange Beach around 3:30pm. We got all our stuff unloaded and went to the beach for a little sand digging before heading to supper at The Hangout. Stratton was really tired and was quite cranky. We still had to get some groceries, so we ran to Winn Dixie really fast. We got back to the condo and crashed. I was hoping that he would sleep late. . .

Friday:: Hit the beach early in the morning, Stratton got us up at 6am!! We got rained out around 11 am. Had lunch in the condo and a nap. Had dinner at Lulu’s and went into Foley for a quick trip to the outlet mall.

Playing in the sand on the beach

Playing in the sand at Lulu’s

We really love Lulu’s!

Saturday :: We were on the beach by 8 am, and S played hard! We went to the pool for a bit, then back up to our condo for lunch and a nap. Stratton had noticed the “race track” across the street from the Lulu’s entrance the day before, so Jarrod looked it up and to ride the go carts you only had to be 3 ft tall! So, after dinner at Doc’s we took Stratton to the Track and he got to ride with Jarrod in a go-cart! I was really nervous, but he loved it. I shouldn’t be surprised! We tried to get him to ride the bumper boats but after he saw some kids spraying each other with water guns, he decided he didn’t want to do that afterall, so they went for another ride on the go-carts.

There were lots of parasail boats

Yep. That’s my BABY on a go-cart!! He loved every min. of it!

Sunday :: I started feeling bad Saturday night. I was extremely sore and my whole body ached.  I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever. I guess it was just a passing thing, because after I rested Sunday morning I felt better by that evening. Jarrod was nice enough to take S to the pool Sunday morning so I could rest. Then we all took a nap Sunday afternoon. We went back down to the pool around 3pm and stayed for about an hour and then came in, got cleaned up and went to dinner at The Oyster House. We browsed the shops there, before heading in.

Haha- love this pic! They are really tired of the camera!!

Much better!

Can you believe how big he looks?!

“Stratton say cheese!”

Monday :: Our last day. Sigh. We spent the morning at the beach, it was so nice! The breeze was blowing and the temperature was perfect. Stratton had gotten much braver and would go up to the water by himself and even played right at the water’s edge. We stayed on the beach till after noon, till Stratton actually said “I wanna go in”. . .haha. This gal didn’t want to leave but I had to give in. We had planned to take S on a Dolphin Cruise. I had called on Friday and they said they had private parities till Monday, and the cruise time was 4pm. So I knew we wouldn’t have time to go back to the beach that afternoon. After we got S down for a nap I hurried to get ready. Jarrod just happened to ask about calling to make sure the cruise was still going out, so he called and guess what?! They were booked already?! On a Monday night?! Soooo. . .I was really disappointed. And I knew Stratton was going to be too. After all that’s what he’s talked about for weeks! We decided to just run down to the Crab Trap for dinner and then go back to the beach till dark and let S play. He didn’t mention the dolphin thing till on our way back to the condo and he teared up and threw a little fit, but once we got his bucket and hit the beach, he never mentioned it again! We stayed on the beach for a long time and then played in the pool for a little while before going in. It was after 9pm before we got Stratton in bed. Then we stayed up and packed everything and loaded the car. AND I had somehow come in contact with something that made me break out in an awful, ichy rash! I started taking benedryl every 4 hrs, but it looked horrible and man it was ichy!!

“Farming” in the sand

Jarrod and Stratton WAY out there. Stratton loved it.

Playground at the Crab Trap!

See what Jarrod does on vacation? Always with the Twitter?!

They are trying to write Stratton in the sand. . . .

. . . .before it washes away!

Tuesday :: Sad day. We were up and gone by 7:30. We made it to Hattiesburg and stopped to eat brunch at Cracker Barrel. We had to stop several time throughout this trip. Traveling with a pregnant woman and potty training child don’t really equal making “good time”. We actually stopped in Memphis at Gigi’s for some cupcakes!! Yay! And then had supper at On the Border- Mexican sounded so good after 5 days of seafood! We got home around 5pm.

We had such a good time. I’m so glad we are blessed with jobs that allow us vacation time. It’s the first time that we have been to the beach just the 3 of us and it was sometimes hard- but worth it. I just can’t even think that the next time we go it will be four of us!?