Our First Family Vacation

For the past week, we were at Orange Beach enjoying our first family vacation with Little. Though we had wifi, I wasn't able to update the blog because we were too busy relaxing to the max! We truly had the most wonderful time. The weather, though forecasted to storm every day, was perfect the whole time we were there. We couldn't have asked for a better time. This was Little's first time to be away from home (other than staying at my parents' house when the tornadoes were here in April), and she did surprisingly great.

We got our vacation started on Sunday. We decided to stop halfway to let Little walk around and stretch her legs. As we were getting close to Montgomery, I called my best friend Jessica from high school to see what she and her family were up to. Luckily, they were eating lunch at East Chase (it's kind of like Bridge Street) and were going to wait for us to get there. I had not seen her in years, but as soon as we saw each other it was like no time had passed. We lost track of time and ended up staying with them for over an hour and a half. Good thing we were on vacation with no plans. I have never been so close to anyone (other than my husband, of course) as I was to this girl. I love her and share a bond with her that is indescribable. What a perfect way to start our vacation! So then we headed on to the beach. On Monday morning, as soon as we woke up we headed out to introduce Little to the sand and ocean. She was a little unsure at first, but Frank was very patient and just sat with her. Eventually, she was sitting in the water and letting him bury her legs in the sand. Here's a pic of the first time she touched the sand. Our condo was conveniently located on the ground floor on the corner of the building, so we had a huge porch and grassy area that Little really enjoyed walking around and picking up leaves and sticks. We could just sit on the porch and let her go. And right outside our back door was this great little Splash Pad. There were toddlers at the Splash Pad at all times, so we spent a lot of time out there. We were definitely spoiled by having it right outside our door. The pool was right next to it also, so we were close enough to where we could put Little down for a nap and go out to the pool with the baby monitor while she slept. My parents came to the beach on Monday to spend vacation with us, and Little was so glad to see them. We spent almost every minute of each day outside and then went out to eat a few times as well. Here is a shot of my parents at Lulu's. Lulu's is such a fun place to eat, not to mention the fried green tomatoes and cheeseburgers are excellent. We ate lunch on the water there and then we were able to go out to the play area where they had all kinds of things to do. There was a huge sandy area with beach toys for kids to play with. There were lots of kids everywhere, and Little enjoyed making new friends. We also ate at Calypso Joe's. Here we were able to walk down to the docks and watch the people clean the fish they caught that day.
We had lots of good food, great weather, and just an all around wonderful time. I would definitely call our first family vacation a success. To see more pictures from our trip, check out my Facebook page.