Paradise With My Toes In The Sand

Family Dinner at Desoto's
Left to Right: Mom, Dada, Drew, Hannah, Maggie, Bo (Kim), Anna, Dad, Me, Nana

This past week I went to Orange Beach with my family. Every year we take a family (intermediate family) trip to the beach. Usually we go with our family friends, The Burdicks, but this year we were going to take a family trip with my grandparents, aunt, and cousins. Every year that we go, we always stick to the same schedule, same places to eat, and same activities. Because they are rituals, and dad is all about rituals. ;) Every day we wake up early, or attempt to, but every day gets later and later. We head down to the beach/pool for a few hours till lunch then we go up, on our own time, and eat sandwiches on the balcony of our condo. My parents, my sister, her friend, my cousin, and I all stayed in a Condo while my grandparents, aunt, and cousin all stayed in the camper at the campground. After lunch, we would head back down to the beach/pool or a few more hours, then slowly one by one head up to shower and get ready for dinner. Getting ready this year was very interesting, we had 6 people to 1 bathroom, 5 of which were girls. Poor dad, had last shower almost

every day and still had to wait about 30 minutes for all of us girls to get ready. He was a trooper though :) Every year we head to the beach with a list of restaurants that we just HAVE to go to! Usually, I bring my friend, Taylor, to the beach with us every year but I wasn't able to this year. I felt so lost without her, I didn't know what to do with myself! I was laying in bed watching Netflix by 10 pm, when usually we would be out looking for crabs, swimming, or just hanging out with Ian and Will! It was a nice week just to lay back and relax, which I really needed since I've been working a lot more than I usually do. It'll be nice to go back to work today though, I've missed those kids! 

On our first full day, one of my best friends and her family were actually down in Gulf Shores too, but that was their last day. So I met up with Alaina and her family and got to spend the afternoon with her family! It was great just hanging out in the ocean with her and getting to catch up. Her sister, Alaina, and I found about 7 hermit crabs that afternoon! We played with them and tried feeding them some Ritz Crackers, while also feeding Sea Gulls since they caught us feeding the hermit crabs and decided to join in. One of the hermit crabs loved crawling on the cracker and holding on to it, it was so cool! 



My sister and I decided to reenact a picture that we found of ourselves when we were younger!! 

 



Even though it's not perfect, we tried!! And I still thinks its really funny! It's crazy how not so little my little sister is :'(

We had a great vacation but it's nice to be home again! I missed my friends and Charlie :)