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We had an amazing week!

 Justin had a birthday.  Here is his climbing wall cake (with Nate's Lego men climbing the wall).

We took off on Justin's Birthday/Mother's Day to head to the Gulf Coast.  We made this trip once before, and it was so much fun.  We were able to stay an extra night (for three nights total), and it was so nice.

We found a nice grocery store, where we can pick up perishables.  Then off to find the little house we rented.  This works out so well for us.  We can prepare most of our meals that way, and we have some room to spread out.  We took games and movies with us in case of rain or a needed rest, but this particular home had several options there already.

 The kids played Headbandz, Guess Who, Scrabble, Life, and we taught some of the kids Hearts.

We slipped over to the beach at dusk.  It was cool and windy, so we tried to have the kids only get in ankle deep.  They decided that meant not to go further than ankle deep...by sitting in the water.  We made our way back to the house, where we found out just how big the mosquitoes were.

The next morning we drove over to Fort Morgan to tour the fort and museum, since it was still a little cool to be in the water.

 Looking out over the bay

 

 Up on top, where cannons were once mounted

 

 Heading into the fort

In what would be our seats at church.  Ellie was quite distressed that we missed our regular services because we were away.

Up the high, steep stairs.  Thankfully they found a different way down.

We had our lunch and then headed to the beach.

 We played in the water,

 built sand castles, and the kids used a body board.  Justin saw a couple of rays and then a couple of sharks, so when they did not scatter after a time,

 

we opted to head to the community pool.  I made a run to a local shop for aloe gel, a different sun screen, hydro-cortisone, and Benadryl...sunburns and bug bites!

On the next day, we spent the morning playing games.  We took the beach umbrella and chairs this time!

The kids had a great time looking for unique shells to show us and splashing in the water. And burying each other...

That evening we went to a local restaurant, which was fun.  Katie knocked over her water, so the waiter cleaned it up quickly.  When she asked for more, he returned with a kiddie cup, with a lid and bendy straw.  She took it well.

 We ran by the beach for a final set of pictures.

That evening we began the clean up.

We packed up all except a change of clothes on Wednesday morning, and then headed to the pool for a quick swim before we started the drive home.

While our vacation was over, our great week wasn't finished yet!

 Thursday, Justin went to work, but I took the kids on a four mile hike, with a picnic lunch.

Then, on Friday, we headed to a puppet show at the library: Shakespeare's Tempest.

Trip to Cincinnati

We had occasion to head back to Cincinnati over the weekend, for the memorial for Justin's PhD advisor.  One of Justin's former students from here has made her way up there to graduate school, and is in Justin's old lab, so she let him take a peak in the renovated lab, which was fun for him.

Despite the sad circumstances, we did find some things to do afterwards with the children in the city.  Generally when we have occasion to stay in the city, we choose a Drury Inn (dinner, snacks, and breakfast all being included and ready access to suites to accommodate our family), outside of town.  This was a holiday weekend, however, so we got a room right downtown.  We had assumed we'd have to drive to go somewhere during the course of our stay, but once we got settled in we found that just about everything we needed was in walking distance.

While we waited for check in, we stopped by Mt. Storm Park.

In 2002

In 2011, right after he defended his dissertation

There are several brands of Cincinnati style chili, but Justin grew up in a Skyline family, so that's the only place we ever go, so we had a late lunch of Skyline. 

Then we took a quick walk through Fountain Square Park, which was virtually across the street from us.  The sun was bright, but that didn't last too long!

We walked over to the Crew Tower, where we walked through the shops and found while many of them were closed, the Hathaway Cafe, where we occasionally would go to breakfast when we were there was still in business, though closed for the afternoon.  We picked up post cards for the older girls' pen pals, then, as we walked out the door, it began to pour.  We had about a 5 block trip back to the hotel, so we arrived rather soaked.  We took a hairdryer and an iron to our clothes to get them dry, while the storm passed.

Since the kids had eaten at the reception and had a late lunch, we decided on Graeter's Ice Cream and whatever snacks we could find at Walgreens for dinner.  The ice cream was wonderful, as always, but we found that the Walgreens had closed at 4:00!  So we missed out on that.  Our hotel did have some options in their little pantry that, while expensive, tided everyone over.

At midnight Justin woke me with low blood sugar.  Typically we travel with sugar ready, but as we never needed the car, we had not brought up the food on the second trip that we planned from the car (which was valet parked).  Most hotels with in room coffee have sugar, but this one did not, so I made a quick dash for the pantry and a Coke for him.  Crisis averted!

We spent less than a day in the city, but we crammed in as much Cincinnati as we could!

Kristy

Vacation

We've never been big trip takers.  We started off our marriage with a short, three night honeymoon to a state park.  Since then, I can count on one hand the number of trips we've taken that didn't involve visiting family or friends, almost all of those while staying in their homes.

We completely splurged last week though.  We headed off to the beach in southern Alabama.  We looked at a few hotels, but due to our family's size there was only one place I could find that would allow us to stay there in the time frame we were looking at.  After seeing the price, I decided to look into renting a house.  For the same cost as that suite in the busy Pensacola area, we could rent a three bedroom house in a quieter place.  It did require putting down a nice sized deposit, but we cleaned up after ourselves and I've already been notified that the deposit is on its way back.  We also had the benefit of two bathrooms, a full kitchen and dining room table, plus beach things (beach towels, and folding chairs for our use, so we didn't have to pack them--a big deal with our itty bitty car and 6 people).  And the best part was our beach access was so very close.  We could have walked had it not been for the kids wearing themselves out in the water.  We only wanted to stay two nights, not sure how everyone would do and trying to limit our costs, and though many homes are only available by the week, we were able to find an accommodating place.  Anyway, I'd encourage families, especially larger ones, to look into this as a possible way to make your trip easier!

One of the side benefits of homeschooling is that we got to take our trip in the off season between the traditional spring breaks and summer vacations, so we spent our time on the beach with no one closer than shouting distance, if that, unless they were walking through.

 

 Cute little 'beach' house, though it wasn't directly on the beach.

 Our first night--it was so pretty and neat as a pin.

 

  Kate hung out as far out as we would let her get--riding the waves.

 Gabby hunted for shells and played in the water close to the shore.

 Nate built sand castles, ran the beach, and played in the shallows.

 

Ellie wasn't overly sure about the sand shifting under her feet with the waves, but she did like the 'giant sandbox.'

God really granted us a beautiful couple of days.  The weather was warm and the skies clear.

This is quite possibly my favorite picture of the trip!