Gulf Shores, Day 3

Our last day at the beach was BEAUTIFUL!!! It was sunny and warm and we soaked up every minute of beach time we could.

In the morning, we decided to go to the larger public beach to give Sarah a different type of beach experience. It was a lot more crowded, but Sarah loved watching watching the surfers and para-sailers. She also loved watching the airplanes dragging big advertisements behind them and the super fast jets from the Naval base in Pensacola.

Sarah spent the morning taking turns venturing into the ocean with her mommy and daddy. Daddy doesn't love the ocean, but he put on a brave face and took her a few feet into the water.

 

Mommy loves the ocean and took her out onto a big sand bank so she could jump into the waves!

 

When she got tired from all that jumping, Sarah began digging a hole to China.

Her daddy helped her fill it with water. It was so funny to watch her try to figure out where all the water went!

 

It was a beautiful morning at the beach!

We headed back for one last nap at the cottage...

 

 

...and then we spent our last afternoon playing at the beach.

 

 

 

Sarah hammed it up for me as I snapped a few more pictures...

 

 

 

 

(Note the sunscreen on the lens for this one!)

 

We were sad to leave the beach that night, but a big cup of green ice cream helped ease the pain!

 

 

We had a wonderful trip, and Sarah is already asking to go back to the beach! 

 

We'll get there, my dear.  We'll get there...

 

 

Gulf Shores, Day 2

The second day of our beach vacation started with thunderstorms as the tail end of a tropical storm swept through the area.  Luckily, Sarah was happy to enjoy a yummy breakfast of beignets and then color at the big table on our screened in porch!

The storms ended by late morning, and once we were certain the rain had stopped, we headed back to the beach.  The cottage we were staying at was located near the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, and the beach we visited was part of the Refuge.  It was a big, beautiful beach - and it wasn't at all crowded!  It also had lots of shallow sand bars just a few feet from shore, so once we reached those bars, Sarah could stand up in water that just reached her knees.  It was perfect for her!

 

 

 

 

After lots of time splashing in the waves, Sarah took some time to dig in the sand.  She had a great time scooping and pouring, but she needs a little work on her sandcastles...

 

 We got to see lots of brown pelicans, which is always a special sight for me.  My Grandpa Bob used to love watching pelicans when he visited the beach, and every time I see them, it's like a little "hello" from him to me...

 

I also made Tom and Sarah participate in this photo opportunity with me:

 

 

When Tom and I were on our honeymoon, we took a picture of our footprints in the sand and told ourselves that any time we went to the beach, we would take similar pictures to document our family's growth.  Cheesy, I know, but it is what it is!

 

We let Sarah spend a little more time playing in the sand (or handing fistfuls of it to her daddy to take back to the ocean for her!) before heading home to wash off the sand and grabbing some dinner.

After another wonderful meal of fresh seafood (and maybe a beer or two!), we explored the purple octopus' neighboring souvenir shop and then headed back to the cabin to rest up for another day at the beach!

 

 

 

Gulf Shores, Day 1

We had a great time in Chicago last summer, but this year we wanted to do something different.  No big city.  No exciting aquariums or museums.  Just us.  And a beach.  And it all started with a trip to the emergency room!

On Saturday morning, as we were packing the last of our stuff into the car, I pushed the back door open to put the cooler on the floor.  I had no idea that Sarah was standing at the open front door with her fingers along the doorframe!  Needless to say, I pinched her fingers between the door and the door frame, and in no time she and I were both crying as Tom drove us to Children's Mercy.  It turns out that her fingers were not broken, but Sarah got to have some x-rays and get her fingers wrapped in a splint for the first 24 hours of our trip...

  

 

Sarah did great on the car ride to and from Gulf Shores, which was no easy feat considering it was about 16 hours of driving...with her left hand heavily bandaged.  We broke the drive up over two days, stopping in Memphis on our way down and again on the way back home, but still - that's a long trip for a 2-year-old!

 

 

 We ran into some rain between Memphis and Gulf Shores, but it had pretty much stopped by the time we reached the cottage we had rented along Mobile Bay.  This little house was a perfect home away from home - and it had lots of charm, too!  We loved having our own dock overlooking what Sarah called "the river," and the two little bedrooms worked out just perfectly for us.  Look at how cute this place was...

 

 

After unloading our stuff and exploring for a while, we decided to find some dinner.  We drove back into town, put in our names at The Shrimp Basket, and let Sarah walk over to see the giant purple octopus at the souvenir shop across the parking lot while we waited for a table to open up!

 

 

Tom and I had a delicious dinner of fried shrimp on the restaurant's porch, but Sarah was too busy watching other kids feed their French fries to the sea gulls to eat much of anything!  It was pretty late by the time we finished eating, but I wanted to let Sarah at least see the ocean before we went to bed.  We had no idea how she would react to the sand or to the water, but it turns out that she loved them both.  Here are the pictures of Sarah's first trip to the beach:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When it got too dark to see the sand, we headed back to the cabin for the night.  Sarah went right to sleep, and Mom and Dad weren't too far behind!