First Family Vacation - Gulf Shores, AL 2010

What an amazing vacation! I think it will be hard to top our first as a family...with two babies in two years this is the first summer we haven't been expecting a baby since we've been married!

We left on Friday, July 2nd around 8:00 in the evening. We drove all night stopping only for gas and/or potty breaks. The kids did great.
Will slept the majority of the way but I think Lulu could sense the excitement and she didn't drift off to sleep for the first time until after 1:00 a.m. Well it could have been the excitement or Sweet Dreams are Made of This blasting on the radio...but after we nicely asked Papaw to turn down the music sleep came a lot easier! Yep, we rode with my mom and dad in the BEAST as we refer to the white van. Actually, I think this is Beast 3 or 4...anyway...when the morning came we were really close to our destination. After a much needed breakfast we called our resort to see if we could check in early as we had made really good time and got there earlier than expected. They gladly said yes and we rolled into the Martinique On the Gulf resort about 10:00 a.m. It is one of the most beautiful places I have been in my life. We rented a beach house for the 13 of of us. The house had a name, Hale Loa. It was Hawaiian themed and just perfect! We settled right in :)

Our week was everything I wanted it to be. Relaxing, fun, exciting...we took lots of naps, relaxed in the pool and cooked most of our meals in our house. It only rained twice...Monday and Tuesday mornings, and then it was sunny in the afternoons. Lucy was afraid of the sounds of the waves and Will thoroughly enjoyed his first encounter with sand. Tyler and I took turns giving the kids naps...which meant naps for us too! I have a feeling that about 2:00 in the afternoon this coming week I'll be slobbering at my desk. We also broke open a bottle of wine about every night after we put our kids to bed and enjoyed our time off together. I sure have missed my better half! He's an amazing dad and husband!

Here are the pictures of our resort...pictures don't really do it justice!

Above is a picture of Rocco's house. He was a local who retired to the resort we were staying at. I think he delights in being the go-to guy of the place. I don't know what profession he was in when he did work but his beautiful home and beautiful Bentley tell me he must have been a hard worker, right?!

Club du Plage

Hale Loa

Now, the second we rolled in I couldn't wait to drive around and see some of the sites. So my Mom and my sisters and I jumped on the house golf cart to take a quick peek at the different amenities. The first thing we noticed was that all the other golf carts around us seems to be zipping by us faster than speeding bullets...and we could figure out why!? I mean we had a full battery...then I started looking at the passengers on the other carts. Lets just say the four of us on our cart opposed to the other women in their string bikinis and little old retired men...we were definitely giving our little cart a workout! No wonder ours wasn't going very fast. Anyway, as we puttered along to see the sites we stopped at both pools to check them out. First at Club du Plage which was beautiful...right on the beach, you could feel the breeze off the ocean. Next on to the indoor/outdoor pool. As we were boarding our cart to return home to give our review of the place I leaped up on the back and raised up way too quick. I hit my head so hard on the roof of the cart it nearly knocked me out. If someone had gotten it on tape they would, FOR SURE, be taking home the $10,000 prize for funniest video. Adrienne, my oldest sister, was in back with me being so sweet saying things like, "Oh my babe, are you OK??? Man you really hit that hard...are you sure you're OK sweetie..." While my middle sister, Margaret, in the front was laughing so hard while choking out, "You just got knocked out!!!" There was actually a chunk of my hair caught in the screw of the roof. I had a goose egg for three days.



Our first day we made it to the beach...which was BEAUTIFUL!!! What oil?! Seriously, I know this is a tragic event and I pray about it daily. But I've heard so much about this area being a mess and I have to say I'm pretty sure "they" are dead wrong. The clean up crews are doing a fantastic job keeping the beaches beautiful.

Happy 4th of July!

Monday morning was rainy so we decided it was girls day out. My Mom, and sisters, Adrienne and Margaret, and I all went to the outlet mall to do a little shopping and then we went to see the movie Eclipse. We had a ball but I wasn't at all impressed with the movie that I had waited MONTHS to see. Oh well...I guess they all can't be good! The MEN stayed home to hang with the kiddos...I think they had a good day. I'm not sure they did much besides nap and eat fresh shrimp my dad picked up at a local market.

Below are pictures from Tuesday swim time! Lucy's workin' it in her bikini...

Tuesday night Tyler and I decided to take Lucy and Will to Lulu's for dinner. Lulu's (aka Lucy Buffett, Jimmy Buffett's sister) is a really neat restaurant at a marina in Gulf Shores. We had a great time...such a neat environment! I got the crab melt and Tyler got the fried green tomato BLT. Sooooooo good! We also made a quick stop at the mall and let Lucy get her ears pierced...well maybe I should rephrase that. We drove ALL the way to the mall BEFORE dinner (Tyler and Will were starving) so I could get Lucy's ears pierced. She didn't really care...until after they did the first one of course...then she cared a lot! She did cry but after she got calmed down she hasn't mentioned them again except to let me know they are there...I personally LOVE them! But then again I've always been that kind of girl :) Below are a few pics from our Lulu's night!

(I'm not very good with night shots)

So beautiful Lucy Addison!

My mom bought Allison Claire some play make-up. She was obsessed with it! She put it on every second she got...and she was always willing to makeover anyone who wanted or needed it! It really didn't matter that she looked like Mimi off the Drew Carey show all week the point is she had a great time and felt like a million bucks with her blue eyeshadow on! I'm thinking I might get myself some ;) Above is a picture of her and I after my makeover.

Wednesday pool time.

Will was teething the whole trip. Poor baby!

On Wednesday night we decided to go to the Wolf Bay Lodge for supper. It was really nice and the food was great. It took a long time to get our food but there was 13 of us...Tyler had frog legs (I say yuck, he said they were great!) and Will and I shared cajun shrimp...he loved them! Below are some pictures from our night!

Thursday morning Tyler, Lucy, Will and I went to Cafe Beignet for some warm beignets and cold milk. We had a nice time being together and afterwards we decided to make a quick run to the store for some baby food and sunscreen. On our way into the store there was a huge display of sunscreen, so we picked up our first item right off the bat. We picked out our favorite spray sunscreen and Lucy took possession of it while she was in the big part of the cart where she was enjoying the ride. A few moments later as Tyler and I were getting baby food we heard the distinct sound of the spray sunscreen. Lucy somehow had hit the top of the bottle just right to make it spray continuously with no way to shut it off. After grabbing it from her and running around like idiots passing the spraying bottle back a forth a few times we sat it in the floor of aisle 4 and went up front to request a clean up. Besides being horrifying we did get free sunscreen considering we were all covered in it from head to toe!

Later Thursday afternoon we decided to go to the water park Waterville USA. We had a blast! The kids had so much fun playing on the water slides and at the theme park. It wasn't as big as I had expected for the price we paid to get in...but we did have a great time! I tried ONE of the big water slides and realized that I wasn't all that fond of slides anymore. Honestly, I was afraid the whole time. So I spent the rest of my time playing with Lucy in the kids section. I felt way more in control there :) I forgot my camera that day so I have absolutely no pictures from that day. Sad but true.

Friday was a lazy swim and laundry day! It sure is nice to get home with all clean clothes from vacation! Below are pictures from Friday.

Our niece and nephew, Allison and Landon

Our nephew, Benjamin Joseph...I love this picture

Tyler getting Lucy geared up for the pool

My dad and I

Lulu at the water fountain...what a DIVA!

Lucy thought she'd lay down for a few minutes before dinner and watch Monsters Inc. She LOVES that movie. She's probably watched it a million times in her short life and if she ever gets tired or if we're in the car for more than five minutes she'll say, "Mom, I need my monsters."

Will and I ready to go out to dinner

The second to last night we decided to go to dinner at Lambert's. You know..."Home of the Throwed Rolls." We had a good time. The server freaked my mom out more than once...first with the old, "would you like some more tea?" and then pretending to dump it in her lap but it was just some pitcher with brown stuff stuck to the bottom. And just when she got calmed down she came around and asked if anyone was interested in some opposum and then proceeded to shove this fake, dead animal in my mom's face. She screamed, of course, which got the kids all worked up...Ben kept saying, "why was you scared nanny?!" We had fun!

Allison, Lucy and Ben enjoying a little car ride outside of Lambert's

Our check out time was 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. When I asked my Dad when we were planning on heading home his reply was, "Well I'd like to leave somewhere between 6 and 10 a.m." Perfect.

The drive home was boring. There was an accident close to Huntsville, AL and because Margaret and Adrienne were both ahead of us they warned us of the slow moving traffic. We made a small detour through some cute little towns and kept right on movin'...which is always good with an eleven month old ;)

For dinner we stopped at Cracker Barrel and when we got back in the car we forgot to turn the GPS on right away so when we finally figured things out we had to make another small detour to get back on track. I was tired and not really in the mood for a drive though the country side at 10:00 at night with 2 1/2 hours to go but my dad said, "Well...look at that corn. It sure is tall and we wouldn't have had the chance to see it if we didn't go this way."

Will on the way home from his 1st vacation! He was such a good boy!

Lulu on the way home...she was good to but not very impressed with
having to be in the car so long!

All in all it was the best vacation I've ever had! I owe my Mom and Dad a huge thank you for putting up with us, driving us, buying some of our meals, stopping at the mall one last time ;) and getting me my first pair of Merrell's for my birthday! They are pretty amazing people I feel blessed to call them my parents!

Coming soon....Will turns ONE in two weeks....HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!!!