Vacation comes to a close

Boo hoo! We'll be heading back to Indiana in the morning. What a fantastic, fun-filled week it has been. Beach front is definitely the way to go and the condo was lovely. Lots and lots of great memories. ....back to reality.....

Thursday, Day 6 of Vacation

There have been scattered T-storms today but we still had a fun day. In the morning we did our normal stroll for shells. We then spent the better part of the morning at the outlets near by. We were off and on the beach all afternoon. I packed the kid's rain coats so they even got to play in the rain for a bit. Here are some photos from the day....

Wed, Recovery Day

We all spent too much time in the sun on Tuesday so Wednesday was a bit of a recovery day. It was a good day for it because it was windy and cloudy all day. We checked out another section of Watercolor in the morning and did a couple walks along the beach. We all took a nap in the afternoon. We have seen dolphins from our balcony a few times which has been really cool but I haven't been able to catch them on camera.

Vacation, Day 4

Well, Tuesday was a FULL day. The major events of the day included a nature walk, play time at a coffee shop playground, beach time, and finally the kids found out what daddy's super, duper, special surprise was. The kids had a good time on the pirate ship adventure that dad planned. It was a pretty cool cruise with a ton of activities for the kids including water gun fights, sword fights, shooting a play cannon, hunting for a treasure lost in the ocean....they even pulled the treasure out of the ocean...... face painting, hats, treats and more...

I've included some of our favorite photos from the day....

Vacation Day 3

Monday was a relaxing day. We started the day off as we have and will with our morning walk down the beach hunting for cool seashells. Then we headed to Watercolor, a nearby community. Watercolor is similar to the Village of West Clay back home. The whole residential area is in a similar style, but it's a venicular design. This architecture is really cool using all local resources. If we go back I'm going to take some pictures of the homes and their landscape. I really liked it. Anyway, after our tour of Watercolor it was time to grab a little lunch and head down to the beach. We spent a lot of time on the beach today. It was a calmer day with very intense sun....lots of sunscreen for all of us. Later we headed out for an Italian dinner out at Angelina's at Seagrove. It was a nice, family friendly restaurant but pretty pricy for what you got, only ~3 star in our opinion.

I uploaded some of my favorite photos of the day. The one of Ian will really CRACK you up :-)

Destine for Destin

Well, we made it to our condo in good time. We're actually not in Destin, Fla but in Seaside which is about 15 miles away. We got in yesterday (Saturday-May 10) around 3:30 pm. We were suited up and on the beach with in minutes of our arrival. Sophie and Ian (especially Ian) loved running away from the ocean waves. Last year Ian didn't like the feel of the sand and was very cautious about the ocean. This year there was no fear, nothing has phased him. Last night we stocked the refrigerator and just chilled in the room. All of us were tired and in bed pretty early.

This morning, it was early to rise (5:10 am), yeah sleeping in on vacation wouldn't that be nice? Maybe, I'll get to experience that.....someday. Anyway, good thing I'm a morning person. We were up early watching the sun come up and the ocean waves from our deck. When John got up, we went for a walk on the beach & collected seashells. Sophie was SO excited to find a few shells. When we got back it was time for another morning snack then I went off for a short run. There is a stat park about a mile away so I ran there. It was a pretty cool park....trail through sand dunes, lots of azelas and magnolias all around. There was even an area of water full of water lily's. I love water lily's so I had to stop and just dream for a few moments. Once I got back from my run, we headed to a seafood market and got some shrimp and mussels. It was very, very windy today with thunderstorms around the area but around 12:30 the sun popped out and didn't go away. So, once we got back we pulled out the chairs and headed down to the beach for some fun in the sand and sun. That took care of most of the day. Tonight, we just had dinner and talked. Good family time. Lovin it so far!

Spring is FINALLY here

Ian being silly at a birthday party (he's 2 1/2 y.o. here)

Sophie in her every day attire (Sophie is almost 5 1/2 y.o. here)

Well, it's been a rough winter at the Porter household. Ian and Sophie have been sick a ton since starting daycare. I didn't expect it to be so bad since there only there a few hours 2 days weekly. I guess they're still exposed to all the same bugs. I'm just glad that spring is here and hopefully they'll be sick less often and I sure hope the doctors are right when they say they'll be sick less often when they start school.

Above is a picture of them in their new sandbox that John built himself. He did a great job with it and the kids (& all of their friends) love it. Another fun thing to report is the aquarium that Grandma and Grandpa Ervin gave us. The kids are having fun taking care of the fish. If we could just get them to stop fighting over who is going to feed them first then I would enjoy them more.

Anyway, we've been busy to say the least these days. We are really looking forward to our upcoming vacation to Destin, Fla. Sophie and her dad have been counting down the days. I'll be sure to blog after our trip from May 10-17th.