Beach Vacation

I'm back tracking a little because I haven't posted pictures in awhile.

This September was Brandon's first scheduled vacation since February so we were ready to be beach bums. It was our first family vacation this year to just spend time together. We stayed at The Wharf in Orange Beach and had a great time. Our nephew, Chris was able to come with us for the weekend, so Brandon and I took the chance to eat a late dinner together at Louisiana Laginappe. Yum.

The Wharf is a condo on the channel in Orange Beach, so it's not on the beach, however it has a big "beach-like" pool area, complete with sand, palm trees, hammocks, music from rock speakers, water slides for the toddlers, and even a snack bar....it was great. I loved that it was also connected to a new shopping center and movie theatre. It's also right on the Foley Beach Expressway so the big outlet mall is only 5 minutes down the road. (You can see where my priorities are when I'm on vacation =)

Anyhow, it was wonderful. We spent a lot of time in the lazy river. We saw several little water frogs in the rocky areas and the kids were thrilled. Owen and Lane have these funny swim suits that let them float and swim by themselves. Lane won't let you touch her when she's in the water, so its helpful. She loves the water and is giggling the entire time. She's a thrill seeker. She was first to attack the water slides, and when the jets in the lazy river would sweep her thru faster, she would laugh hysterically.

We spent the entire week relaxing together. One of my favorite things about this vacation was seeing Lane sleep on Brandon's chest in a hammock. It reminds me of a picture of me sleeping on my dad's chest when I was small. Seeing the kids enjoy the pool was wonderful. When we would be getting ready, Lane would put her arms up asking me to put sunscreen on. She would also say "Hello Water!" when we got to the pool. So funny. They loved every minute.

The evening strolls on the piers and seeing the big Blue Heron and pelicans were so nice. Lane truly thought she could catch them. Oh! One weird thing was, in the middle of the night, the first night, I could have sworn I heard an owl, hooting. I thought it was my imagination. Then 2 nights later I heard it again. I mentioned it to Brandon and he had heard it and we both thought it was our imagination =). We never saw it, but think that there may have been an owl on the neighboring porch. We were on the top floor and the building was pretty much vacant. So the rest of the week, I was hoping I could catch it on our porch or something and take a picture...it never happened. So funny! It's one of those things I'll always remember. So random to hear an owl at the beach.

Our last night there when we were heading back upstairs from one of our walks the lights wrapped around the tree trunks were lit up and Owen said, "Mommy, Daddy, it looks like Christmas time!!!" We got a kick out of that, we were surprised that he remembered what it was supposed to look like.

That evening we also saw 3 dolphin. It was right at dusk when they feed in the shallow water. They actually came about 8 feet from the dock where we were standing. It was awesome.

Here are some pics from that week. Plus the one of my and my daddy about 30 years ago.