Florida Vacation

We are the brave souls that decided to load up an almost 15 month old and drive 13 hours to Ft. Walton Beach, Florida.  To our surprise, we had a perfect little road tripper.  We left bright not so bright and early in the morning....6:15am on Saturday morning.  We had hoped that Ethan would sleep for the first part of the trip.  No such luck.  He was too interested in why Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, and Dad were all in the car at this time of day.  He did eventually take a nap, we were in Mississippi I think by the time this happened.  I must have missed the memo that is it was nap time. 

Genetics don't lie! (Sorry Grandpa)

We made it a point to stop every couple of hours to stretch some legs and expend some energy.  We even made friends in Alabama with a lady who loved babies so much she gave Ethan 4 quarters and a dime.  I guess she thought Ethan needs some pants.  After a few stops every few hours for a diaper change or gas fill up we made it Florida in under 13 hours.  Once we got into town, we stopped for some dinner at Ruby Tuesday and then headed to the condo.

On day two after getting some breakfast and groceries for the week (much easier than eating out with a toddler), we went straight down to the pool.  The pools were fantastic.  There was a larger pool that had very shallow end that little ones can splash around in.  There was a lazy river that truly does induce laziness.  Then upstairs we found two other pools, one fairly deep for relaxing and one extremely shallow for the kiddos.  The kiddie pool also had a fun pirate ship that seconds as a slide.  We were frequent visitors of this spot throughout the week. 

Enjoying some time at the pool

Pirate slide

Almost nap time

Rowing away with Grandpa

Splashpad with Dad

Later we went to down to the beach.  Ethan was not impressed.  Granted the current was pretty high.  He much more at ease at the pool.  Bummer for Mom. 

We had a couple of rainy days throughout the week as well.  We did our best to keep Ethan entertained with little luck.  We used one day to head over to Destin for some outlet shopping.  He's not a big fan of shopping.  The next day we went to the Science Museum in town.  While small, it was fun for him to play with the invisible guitar and the car tracks.  There were few things in town that are indoor activities.   We did learn that this doesn't mix well with Ethan.  He gets cabin fever rather quickly when he doesn't have the run of the house like he normally does.  We even tried to head to McDonald's for playtime.  Would you believe that Playplace at McDonald's are almost non-existence in that area?  I was amazed. 

Entertaining ourselves inside with the rain

Playing the invisible guitar strings

Luckily, we were able to enjoy one more day of sun on Thursday.  We spent most of the day at the pool taking in all of the sun we could.  Thursday night we went to dinner down the road at the Seafood place (I don't remember the name) on the shore.  We were able to look out over the ocean while we dined.  They even had super tall highchairs so that little ones could sit out there.  After dinner we walked down on the pier at sunset.  It was lovely to watch the sunset over the pier. 

Throwing him overboard!

One of my favorite shots!

We woke up early on Friday to head home.  Once again, we had an angel for the most part.  Once we learned his tolerances, we learned to stay ahead of the game.  I think he slept all of an hour on the way home.  He did fall asleep again as we pulled into downtown Ft. Worth. 

All in all we had a great time, rain and all.  I think it is safe to say that we will be going back in the future!