the epic saga continues....

I know, I know, FOUR vacation posts in a row? But like I said, this is one of my favorite places so there's so much I want to record and remember and share. I love this beach town. Everything is built to reflect a West Indies/French Corridor type of architecture. What that actually means I'm not sure, to me it means all the houses looked fancy and snobby and classy and I LOVED it! I don't mind imagining that I'm a classy high society type for a week who is accustomed to frequenting homes with carriage houses and fountain filled courtyards.

Don't you want to be on this porch RIGHT NOW!?

This grassy area? Don't call it a field, it's the "Eastern Green", again, a bit pretentious, and I like it.

Some pictures from the neighboring town of Seaside. There's a cupcake stand, you know I love that! I had an amazing Salted Caramel cupcake. I should have taken a picture, but I ate it way to fast. Also, I had the best shrimp taco in this town too at The Taco Bar.

We walked to the shops a lot. I love being able to walk everywhere. Some of our favorites? the Sugar Shak, for obvious reasons and Gigis Boutique, which had the CUTEST children's clothes. That little red dress in front? It cost $88. So maybe I don't love ALL things snobby because charging that much for kids clothes is just sick.

My niece. Out of all the yummy rich candies she could pick from in the Sugar Shak, she chose a 4 foot long gummy snake. That's a lot of gummy-ness. And I couldn't help but think as she attacked that gummy snake, that the texture couldn't be that different from a REAL snake....makes my stomach turn a little. Look at her go after it!

The town is designed to be super pedestrian and bike friendly and not super car friendly. As in you can't park really anywhere (my dad got 2 parking tickets!). But you can ride your bike anywhere almost as quick or stroll on one of the boardwalks that connect the whole town.

Lindsey and my Mom

One of the many boardwalks to travel on. Or twirl and dance on if you please!

And the beaches are fantastic too.

I think Miss A approves!

Or does she? You never know with this girl. I dread seeing these mood swings in teenage form from her!

Miss A and her Grandma "GiGi" as she calls her.

Cute cousins!! It's fun to see them interact and enjoy each other's company more as they get older. Although their relationship did go through a rough patch when they realized there was only 1 PURPLE shovel to be had amongst all the apparently inferior YELLOW shovels and that they would have to SHARE! That led to a lot of tears but in the end Shannon invited us to come live with her so I think we ended on a good note!

A big thanks to my mom and dad and my sister Lindsey. They helped so much with the kids since Zach wasn't there and beaches and trips can be a lot of work with little ones. I know they'd get a lot more relaxing in if they went without us! It was really good though to have so much time to spend together as a family. Let's try again for next year :)

Deja Vu

Same cute girl, same beautiful beach, same month, one year later, I think I see a pattern forming that I'd like to keep going!

beautiful beach

I figured I should get the rest of the pictures up from our beach trip since I'm at the beach again! This time with my parents and sisters, grandpa, niece, nephew and my girls. No Zach though. Poor guy can never get the school off. This trip feels extra special because exactly a year ago we had a house booked at the same exact beach for my family. A few weeks before the trip, Lindsey found out that she had relapsed with leukemia. Just my older sister and me and our kids ended up going to the beach house since we couldn't get it refunded. Lindsey and my parents were at St. Jude prepping for her bone marrow transplant. It was probably the most amazing house I've ever stayed in. And Rosemary Beach is one of my favorite towns ever. But it just felt wrong. The huge echo-y house with all it's empty unused space was a constant reminder that we were supposed to have been there with a full house of family. So it feels very fulfilling to be taking this trip with the crew that should have been there last year and especially to have Lindsey here too! Anyways, below is just a random smattering of pictures from our trip a few weeks ago.

Failed again :)

Once again we failed to be fun parents in the celebrating a holiday department, this time the holiday being Easter. We did take Miss A to a local Easter carnival, but forgot to bring her Easter basket (well, she doesn't actually have an Easter basket....shhh...). One of the carnival volunteers let us use a grocery sack for the egg hunt so we were okay. And then that lazy bunny didn't have a surprise basket ready for her Sunday morning either. But I did throw some eggs around the backyard on Monday and we had a little hunt. And got some pictures in the process.

I also failed in the taming my daughter's hair department. I don't foresee success in this area any time soon.

Aren't you jealous of this gorgeous warm sun? Well, just wait until July when it's disgustingly hot and stifling humid here.....