Toes in the Water, Toes in the Sand: Vacation Recap Part I

The week of July 4 we went to Orange Beach/Gulf Shores, Alabama.  Orange Beach and Gulf Shores run together kind of like Bloomington/Normal, but our condo was actually in Orange Beach.  We shared the 3 bed/3 bath with Frank's parents and his brother Garett and sister-in-law Rachael and their kids.  It sounds like a lot of people in one place, but we all had a blast hanging out with each other! 

There is no way I can recap everything, so I'll try to hit the highlights...

• I was really worried about the 14-15 hour drive, but it turned out fine!  Going down, we stopped for a few hours at Frank's parents (approx 3.5 hours away) so Jacob and I could burn off some energy. By then it was evening, and we drove for the next 7ish hours, finally stopping north of Montgomery, AL, at 1:30.  The next morning, we drove the remaining 4 hours into Orange Beach.  Jacob discovered he likes playing with Frank's ipad:

• The condo had a big pool, a kiddie pool, and a lazy river.  Jacob and I usually went down to the pool for about an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. 

I was terrified of him getting burnt, but we were both sunscreen maniacs.  (Frank is ridiculously tan, as you might imagine.) We spent most of our time at the kiddie pool.  

Jacob and Grandma

• On Tuesday evening, we took family pictures.  Later that evening, I realized this was the FIRST time I had ever actually taken family pictures!  No joke.  Frank and I ended up in some of Jacob's newborn pictures, so we have a family picture, but it was by accident.  Anyway, we took these pictures on the beach at sunset, so it was a great backdrop.  The interesting thing was that some kind of protected birds had laid eggs on the beach, and to get to the area where we were shooting, we had to walk along a trail.  If we veered off the trail, we could have stepped on the bird eggs.  (Try explaining that to a 19 month old.)  So we saw a few newborn baby birds as well as some angry momma birds while we were shooting.  Below are a few of the shots we took while waiting on our photographer to arrive:

After pictures, we went to a really nice restaurant for dinner.  Even though it was two hours past his bedtime by the time we were finished, Jacob didn't do too badly at dinner.  I think the fact that he was totally exhausted had something to do with it!