We truly didn't plan on leaving the condo the whole week. However, while I was in the condo with the four napping kids on Sunday afternoon (total peace and quiet!), Ryan, Brian and Jill overheard a couple on the beach trying to get rid of their two Brad Paisley concert tickets for that night. He is my absolute favorite musician, and Ryan jumped on the chance. He came upstairs and surprised me with the two tickets! Brian and Jill were so gracious to keep the kids, so we could go. Gulf Shores put on several "Concerts for the Gulf" since the oil spill earlier this summer to bring in tourists. Jimmy Buffett, Bon Jovi, Daughtry and Sublime are some of the other acts that have performed. They set up a huge stage right on the main beach, and people just relax in the sand to enjoy the music. It was one of the best concerts I have seen; he was awesome! One of his songs is called "Whiskey Lullabye," and it's a duet with Alison Krauss. Typically at his concert, her recorded image is projected onto a big screen to sing her part, but she was there at the concert to sing with him! She is one of Ryan's favorite musicians so we were both thrilled! This was a fantastic evening!
So, other than that wonderful concert, our Sunday through Wednesday looked pretty much the same. We had the most gorgeous weather we have ever experienced while in Gulf Shores. Amazingly clear weather, high hovering around 80-82, ridiculously clear water...it was beautiful. We got up each morning, enjoyed breakfast and then headed down to the beach. We stayed out until about 1:30, and then we would come up to eat lunch (we tried one day on the beach, but sandy sandwiches weren't that great), shower off and nap. Three adults headed back down to the beach while one stayed up with the kids (except on Wednesday when I went to the outlet mall). After the kids got back up, and they took long naps each day, we would either go back out and play in the sand or go ahead and have dinner and then play. Two nights, Ryan and Brian grilled on the beach (you can't have grills on the balconies), and brought the dinner up for us. We all just kept saying how amazing the weather was; we couldn't believe it, and we all wanted to enjoy every minute of it.
We also noted how this trip gave us hope for future trips. The kids did a great job playing together. While we had fun playing with them too, they did great entertaining themselves a lot of the time while the adults were able to relax instead of constantly running after them; what a nice change! We were able to talk, read, play frisbee, fly a kite and play paddleball. There weren't a lot of people there, so the kids were able to run a little bit without us worrying as much.
The Hendersons had to leave on Thursday morning, but we stayed one more day. The four of us had a great day on the beach, digging in the sand and playing in the water. We truly had a wonderful time just playing together and hanging out as a family. We are so blessed. This was an awesome vacation! It was really hard to narrow down the almost 500 pictures we took, but here you go...
Parker and Lily made sure at least one parent from each family was up to watch the sunrise with them each morning. The camera couldn't catch the true beauty of the morning. I even didn't mind waking up to see this (and that is saying a lot!).
This is the weather we saw every single day. Absolutely gorgeous!
Ready to hit the beach on Sunday morning!
We started out by playing in the sand each morning. All the kids enjoyed digging and filling the buckets. They also liked making "sticky sand" by dipping the shovelfuls of dry sand into the water.
Loving the beach!
A favorite activity was running into the water and then squealing with delight while running back as the waves were coming in. Nothing better than the sounds of these happy squeals!
Seriously, have you ever seen such cute kids?
Lily was absolutely terrified of the water while we were in New Smyrna Beach in July. That was certainly not the case here! She had a blast playing in the ocean. At one point, she even said "Mommy, I'm not scared of the ocean anymore! I love it!"
The kids also loved Brian's big parrot kite.
We couldn't find the sunglasses Lily wore this summer, so we stopped at CVS on our way out of town. Lily found these pink ones that have Tinkerbell on the corner, and she immediately fell in love with them. She wanted to wear them all the time which was great.
Both girls loved having Daddy's help to jump waves!
Parker is so adorable!
It was really interesting, but Mia became very attached to Jill while Macey became very attached to me. Both are such sweet girls, we didn't mind!
The adults had a lot of fun playing paddleball. Lily and Parker had fun trying to learn too.
I love this picture of Mia. Notice her feet...you can see they are both off the sand as she is high-tailing it to the ocean! She had such a blast this week!
The girls were so sweet to one another; actually, all the kids were sweet to one another, but I loved this picture of the girls holding hands while playing together.
Parker checking out the huge fish Brian caught.
Such happy girls!
Another picture of our precious girls enjoying the water!
The grilled chicken from the beach. Yum-o!
This little boat was parked just up the beach from us, and the kids loved running over to it to play for a few minutes. They pretended to sail all over the world, they were pirates and Lily pretended to have an ice cream stand here at one point.
On Thursday, after spending the morning at the beach, lunch in the beach-view swings, playing in the pool and napping, the four of us visited Beach Club's playground. The girls had a lot of fun climbing, sliding, swinging, jumping and crawling around here. You can see the pole on the far right. Lily wanted to spend almost the whole time sliding down this pole. At first, we helped her, but after several times of that, she started it jumping on and sliding down on her own. I am so proud of her for trying new things!
Our little monkey swinging above the slide.
Lily going down the pole by herself.
This was such a wonderful vacation! We can't wait for next year!
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