Back in May when Spencer officially graduated with his MBA/MSHA, we decided to celebrate with a beach trip. We found a killer deal for a week in September at our favorite beach (Seaside/Seagrove Beach) that our friends introduced us to when we lived in Alabama. The sand is white and the water is clear and blue and warm and gorgeous. We also really love the beach town - Seaside was were the Truman Show was filmed and I could ride my bike coveting/looking at all of the perfectly cute beach houses all day :) We got back from the beach this last Sunday and we had a blast! We loved visiting off-season because the crowds were gone, the weather was cooler (but still warm!), and it was a lot cheaper. It also miraculously didn't rain for the entire week! The weather was perfect.
We started the trip off with a miserable 18 hour drive with a pit stop in Birmingham. In Birmingham, we drove by our old apartment, we ate one of our favorite fast food places (Backyard Burger), we played at our favorite castle park, and we stalked up on Bluebell Ice Cream since it is only available in Texas and Alabama right now. They didn't have our very favorite (Butter Crunch) but we took what we could get!
We did the same exact thing every day at the beach with very few variations - we woke up before the crack of dawn, we watched the sunrise at the beach, we rode our bikes to the park in the morning, we played at the beach all day, we finished off our dinner with Bluebell Ice Cream cones, we put the boys down at 7, we watched a couple episodes of Parks and Rec, and we hit the sack by 8:30. It was amazing :)
The very first hour of the very first day on the beach, Spencer miraculously caught a fish with a toy net (and then Jack and David expected him to catch fish on demand for the rest of the trip... he never caught another one :) Jack was so happy to have the fish in a bucket, but then David "re-caught" the fish and set it free. (It was devastating and traumatic for Jack and probably for the fish too ;)
For a few days, the purple flag was up which meant "marine pest present". We weren't sure which pest they were talking about because we saw sea slugs, crabs, sting rays, shark (a lot of schools of six-inch sharks and two 3 foot shark (eek! We saw the bigger ones early one morning while we were walking on the beach).
Sea slugs
Sting Ray
Crabs (David was a little too daring!)
"Crabbing" at night
Spencer also caught a really big crab and I couldn't get the boys to look up and smile for the life of me! haha
I think the biggest marine pests were Jack and David though :) Jack loved EVERYTHING about the beach - digging in the sand, swimming in the waves, looking for seashells, chasing seagulls, crabbing... everything. David's favorite things were swimming in the swimming pool, eating food (ha!), chasing the seagulls, and touching all of the marine pests :)
David is a HUGE daddy's boy. If I ever held David or helped David, David would get mad and cry for Spencer. I really didn't complain about that ;)
Chasing seagulls while holding a toddler is a lot of work :)
The curls grew back, thank goodness!
Jack was my little seashell buddy. We would go out as the sun was rising and look for seashells and crabs :)
Wednesday was the only day we ventured out of our beach routine. We drove to Destin Harbor and went to a crab leg and sushi buffet. It was so good!
Jack was DISGUSTED that we were eating crab legs! haha
We got donuts one morning at one of our very favorite donut shops ever but I have to say, after trying Bosa donuts in Arizona, these just weren't as good as I remembered. #darnbosaruinedallotherdonutsforme
We literally had ice cream every. single. day. When the amazing Bluebell ice cream cones ran out, we went out to get some different ice cream!
Jack and David loved hanging out at our condo because of the balcony and because of Disney Jr. and Nick Jr. :)
I'm still not sure how I feel about my selfie stick yet... it's pretty awkward ;)
And now for the sunset portion of this blog post ;)
God is pretty awesome :)
Our drive back to Iowa was absolute hell but a price worth paying for a great week at the beach! I hope we can go back some day!
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