A good friend of ours invited us to go on a 4 day vacation to Gulf Shores, Al. All we had to pay for was gas, food, and fun. How could we say no? There was a slight catch though. We would be traveling with 4 young kids for 8 hours. Before you say "Ooooh....." let me also tell you their ages; 7, 4, 3 and 11 months. WE REALLY WANTED TO GO TO THE BEACH. So, we headed out Saturday at 5am on our fun-filled weekend at the beach.
The trip down really wasn't that bad. The kids slept until around 8:00 when we stopped for some breakfast. The rest of the time they watched movies and stayed pretty much quiet until we got closer to our destination. Then they started getting a little restless and excited. When we finally arrived at The Beach Club, "The Poo Poo" hit the fan, which I knew was inevitable. I had just unloaded the luggage and was parking the van while everyone was waiting for me at the lobby doors. As I came walking up I heard Harlee screaming, like in pain screaming. When I got closer I saw Melissa crying, holding Harlee and trying to console her. Evidently, Harlee had her face and hands against the glass on the 'automatic' entrance door trying to see inside the lobby. Someone walked out the door and it opened on her arm, pinning it between the two door frames. Luckily she didn't break anything. The woman who caused the door to open had gone in the lobby and brought Harlee back two cookies to try and console her. When she asked Harlee if she wanted the cookies I could see a look of complete hatred on her face, as if she were saying ..."I don't want any stinking cookies you meanie". We had to wait for the Beach Club manager to come insure we weren't going to sue anyone before we finally got to the room. We were on the 15th floor, ocean-side, with a magnificent view of the Gulf.
The kids went crazy in the room, actually the adults did too. We were all so excited to get out to the beach. After getting all the luggage in and grabbing a quick bite to eat, we headed out to the water. This was Harlee and Brinlee's first time to the beach so they were both a little overwhelmed with all the sand and water, but they soon started playing and having a blast.
We played on the beach for a few hours and then decided to head to Wal-mart to pick up a few groceries and snacks for the kids. After a long day of riding in the car, getting arms caught in doors, and playing on the beach the kids were exhausted and fell asleep watching Monsters Inc.
We woke up early Sunday to a storm out in the gulf, which produced a beautiful rainbow.
We fed the kids some breakfast, waited for the storm to pass, and then headed to the beach again. We all had a great time and I built a huge sandcastle for the girls to play in.
Monday was a different story though. We got ready for the beach but Brinlee fell asleep, so I decided to stay in the room and let her take a nap while everyone else went out. Melissa came back 20 minutes later to get Harlee's sunglasses because she was complaining about the sunshine. Brinlee had already woke up so we all went down to the water. We played for about 15 minutes but Harlee wanted to go back to the room and Brinlee was fussy because she had sunscreen in her eyes. So Melissa and I took the girls back to the room hoping they would get some rest and want to go back to the beach later. It wasn't too bad since Melissa and I both had sunburns from the day before and wanted to wait until later to go out ourselves. After sitting in the room for a few hours and watching My Little Pony, Melissa was getting stir crazy. We started looking for something we could go do and found a Dolphin cruise that was going out at 6:00. We gathered the troops and headed to Orange Beach to see some dolphins. This was a really cool experience. The dolphins would actually follow the boat and surf in the wake. Here are a few pictures from the boat. (Sorry I don't have the pictures of the dolphins on here yet).
We got up Tuesday morning and started packing to go home. Everyone was sad to leave the beach but also wanted to get back home, especially the kids. Us adults just wanted to get the drive home over with. The older kids acted fairly good on the way home but poor Brinlee was just tired of being strapped in her car seat. We finally made it back to Tennessee and unloaded all the kids and luggage. With just the memory of the beach and the fun we had we faced our daily lives again.
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