DESTIN-ATION VACATION

In July we went on our own for a family vacation for the first time to Destin, FL. We did originally plan to meet friends or family there, but it ended up falling through with everyone. While it would’ve been tons of fun to be with other people, it was nice to get to make these memories just between the four of us. The last time we were at the beach was when Brooke was 6 months old. We went with all of my family and Brooke cried the entire way there and back. And then she cried even more if I wasn’t holding her. My arms and my hips were so sore. I did not care to go anywhere remotely long distance for a very long time after that.

We left at 4:30 am and it rained on us almost the whole 8 hour drive. It did actually stop for a while as soon as we got in Destin. You have to go across this long bridge just to enter in to Destin…The toll was $2.50. We lucked out and the resort let us check in 2 hours early. I was shocked to see the baggage guy walking to our car with a cool cart. He took everything and had it all in our room by the time we parked and got up there…That was awesome! We could not believe how nice this place was…Just beautiful everywhere you looked.

The skies were dark but we managed to make a quick trip to the beach before it came down. We were right across the street from Henderson State Park and chose to go there every day instead of the other free beaches. It was very private and quiet and well worth the $6 per day. Even with the cloudy skies it was absolutely beautiful. You forget what joy the soft sand on your feet and the sound of the wind crashing on the waves brings. We went to South Padre Island about 5 years ago but that brown sand, seaweed laced beach is drab compared to the white sand beaches of Florida. The kids were so cute with their amazement. They went in the water right away but seemed to be completely shocked at the water creeping up on them with every wave. They loved it...Especially Brooke. Cole did like it a lot but could've spent all day at the pool, too. Brooke kept wanting to go back to the beach. She loved the sand and her imagination seemed to be as endless as the ocean. We thoroughly enjoyed being able to spend hours splashing in the pools and then a few more hours relaxing on the beach each day. You just feel like you're in a whole different world and are amazingly able to feel stress free the moment your feet touch the sand... If only get aways like this were possible several times a year.

As you probably already figured, I took tons and tons of pictures. I tried to put them together on a slideshow, but I'm not sure how good the quality of them will be here on the blog. Weeding out the bad and ones and editing the good ones takes a long time, especially when my computer keeps malfunctioning. I swear, every time it does a crash dump, a white hair pops up on my head...Which is way more often than you would think. Not cool, not cool at all.

It would take entirely too long to load all the pictures individually on the blog but, you can click the link below to see all of them...You'll be glad you did!

Click here and then click on the first photo to see a larger view: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v226/mccallum32/DESTIN%20VACATION/?albumview=grid