Summer 2022 Vacay

Our Destin Beach vacation was a blast! We started the day at Ezra's promotion from 5th grade and ended the day at the beach!  

The kids actually did great road-trippin. They are great travelers.

This was my passenger sidekick. We loved competing in finding as many state license plates as we could. It was actually one of my favorite parts of the trip! Sophia ended up finding more states than I did, but I did find Alaska! 😃 We found a total of 38 states. Thanks to Silverdale Kids for the game idea in our road trip packet!

This picture just says "summer" to me. 😊

So looking ahead at the weather....things weren't looking too good. Since the day we traveled was such nice weather, we decided to drive STRAIGHT to the beach. There was only about an hour left of daylight, and we wanted to make sure we got at least an hour of beach time on our beach trip!😜

We got right into the water- clothes and all!

Well, at least most of us did. 😉

This is more of Sophia's vibe. 

She be chillin. 💛

We were happy to be here.

That night we took advantage of some indoor swim time and jacuzzi time. Jacuzzis = always one of my favorite parts of every vacation. Thankfully, my kids enjoy them too. I'm thinking I definitely need to own one of these some day. 😊

True to the weather report, the whole next morning looked like this. 😞 Stormy and rainy. Our power even went out at the hotel for a few minutes. What's really cool about kids though is that they usually adapt pretty well. The boys made friends in the pool and played water football for hours. I was the one pouting on the side wishing for my beach day. 😂

The weather did clear up enough that afternoon to go outside, so we visited the Harbor Walk Village.  

They had all kinds of cool boats, restaurants, and shops.  

This part of the harbor walk totally fit Sophia. 💛

Amos said one of his favorite parts of the trip was eating at this restaurant, East Pass Seafood and Oyster House. He ate pizza. Haha.

Sophia was so excited about the little henna art she got on her arm.

That night, Amos and I were the only ones to venture out to the beach for a little bit. It was cloudy and windy, but still beautiful.

We passed a lot of football on this trip.

The beach we went to on this evening was across the water from the Harbor we were at earlier in the day.  The harbor view was beautiful that night.

The next morning's weather was just like the day before but worse. 😟 We were even under tornado watch. The boys were totally fine to play in the pool all morning again. I just read a book, and Sophia chilled in the room. Thankfully, the sun finally came out that evening. We decided to visit the Okaloosa Island Pier. This evening was definitely a highlight for me. Probably because the sun finally came out. It was so peaceful and beautiful on the pier. Many people were fishing. We even saw several dolphins jumping and playing in the water. The evening felt kinda magical to me.

The next day- the day we were supposed to be leaving- was perfect weather, so I inquired about staying an extra day. We needed at least one full beach day! It did not disappoint. The blue water, white sand. Sooo nice. 😍

That evening, my aunt and uncle treated us to dinner at Fudpuckers. So sweet! They happened to be at Destin at the same time as us just staying one mile down the road. It was great to see them! At Fudpuckers, we got to hold a baby alligator. The whole experience was a lot of fun!

After dinner, we got ready to take some pictures on the beach. My dreamy heart has always wanted to have family beach pictures. My aunt took some photos for us, and I took some for them. The wind was CRAZY as you can tell from the pictures. (We really did brush our hair. Lol.) It was truly a beautiful evening though.

I didn't pose like this. I was just trying to tame my wildly blowing hair. It's the best one I got. Lol. 

My Aunt Jeanie and I

The next day was another beautiful day. We wanted to stay at the beach as long as possible before driving home. We got a few good hours in. The water was actually the calmest and most beautiful on this day. We all went out into the water pretty far. Sophia wanted to beat the farthest person out. 😁 Amos came with us, but stayed in a raft held tightly by Momma. 😊 We had a lot of fun with the waves.

He's a joyful little dude. 💓 He would have stayed at the beach if he could.  He very sincerely asked me later why we couldn't just stay. Lol.

It was time to go home. Not long after driving away the kids said, "Mom, that was so much fun! We had a blast." All on their own. And that's all my Momma heart wanted to hear. 💛

 I asked each of them their favorite parts of the trip:

Sophia- the afternoon at the Harbor and taking photos at the beach *correction- Sophia said that she forgot about Fudpuckers and that was definitely her favorite: holding the alligator, being in the fun environment, the decor, the food, all the signatures everywhere.

Ezra- seeing the alligators and holding an alligator at Fudpuckers

Amos- the food 😂 Eating at East Pass and Fudpuckers. And seeing the alligators. 

That's a wrap! Thankful for this sweet time with my little family. Just making memories. 

 These are still the days.  💞