Back to the Beach!

After skipping our annual beach trip last year due to numerous weddings, we made it back this year to mark Griffin's first time at the beach and Sawyer's first time that he can remember. Although we prefer the mild weather and Carribean-like water quality of late September/early October, now that Harrison's in school that just isn't going to work for a pretty long time. Nonetheless, we had great weather and the seaweed wasn't so bad after the first day.

The trip down there was easier than anticipated. Griffin just needed his bottles and was quiet and happy the rest of the time and Sawyer and Harrison were sufficiently hooked up with DVDs and video games. We made it all the way the Mobile, AL Wednesday night very late, allowing for an easy trip on Thursday. We probably got to the beach around 1:30-2:00 and both Harrison and Sawyer were in their swimsuits and on the beach by 3:00. The seaweed on that first afternoon was like split-pea soup, but they didn't seem to mind and fortunately it didn't stay that way.

Griffin was able to enjoy many late-afternoon beach walks thanks to the snuggli. He would drift off to sleep while making for a pretty good workout for me to earn my dinner. The sun was a little too intense for him during the rest of the day, but I think he had a pretty good trip.

We will definitely be enrolling Harrison in some swim lessons; during the course of this trip he went from being too scared to go in past his knees to us having to make sure to keep an eye on him so that he wouldn't go too far out. That happened in the course of two days, after which the tropical depression in the Gulf caused the surf to go to double-red flag for pretty much the rest of the trip.

We did the customary beach activities: Miniature golf, in which Sawyer exhibited a shuffleboard-like style of play and thoroughly enjoyed it to the point where 18 holes alone were not enough to make him happy. Go-karts, for which Harrison was big enough to drive on the rookie track this year, and a whole bunch of other amusements. We considered a trip to the water park, but since Harrison can't swim yet we didn't think they could get enough out of it.

For the evenings, there was plenty of good food, fun things to do, and very tired boys that were easy to get to bed. The boys got to dance around at a concert on the lawn at Carrilon beach down the street from us, and we visited Baytown Wharf in Sandestin for some good food and great scenery. Also, Panama City Beach itself got a little renewal in a new development called 'Pier Park' with restaurants, shops and a movie theater among many other things. That was only 15 minutes from us so we did a lot there including taking the kids to see Wall-e and eating at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville Cafe (Yes, that's the lost shaker of salt underneath the disco ball underneath the seaplane in the picture to the left).

We finished the trip off with an excursion on the Captain Anderson III, a glass-bottom boat that took us out into St. Andrew's bay. Nothing was visible through the glass bottom and there was only one dolphin out that day, but we still a great time seeing the sights and boys enjoyed having the run of the boat and feeding the seagulls and even getting to sit behind the wheel.

By the last two days of the trip, Sawyer kept whining that he was ready to go home, and he was glad to get home to his own bed, but not two days after getting back he stated that he was ready to go back to the beach house. I think we all had a great time and hopefully we can do this again next year.