Day 1 and 2 of 'Da Beach'

DAY 1: Monday, July 6th
We reached Gulf Shores last night in 10 hours of what should have been an 8 hour trip... but the boys were really good about being in a car that long... the DVD player helped and even though we had a slue of DVD's the boys love... we watch a total of 1 non-stop... Bolt... thank you John Travolta and Mylie Cyrus. The boys slept in until 6:30 and immediately prompted us to get our useless butts out of bed/sleeper couch and get to 'Da BEACH'...

While the boys ate breakfast and were getting ready I was opening the immense amount of toys that NaNa thoughtfully bought for the boys.. and BOOM

My hand got in the way of the knife.

No big deal.. wrap it up tight and head down there to the boardwalk... once we hit sand it took us another 20 minutes to get 50 feet to the chairs we had rented...

I would have bet my life savings that G would hate the sand and D would never come out of the ocean.. but like always, my boys make liars out of me.
We played in the sand (not a good idea with a wrapped up open wound), we built sand castles, we played in the very strong waves(not a good idea with an open wound) in the overcast sky and ice cold water for a good hour before the rain hit...

Excuse me.. not rain..
beebees falling in water form from the sky... they stung and the boys were freaked... so we came in, had a snack, I did some laundry, we ate some lunch and got the boys to napping while the rain was coming down.
After naps we went to the beach again in the spitting rain because we are on the beach dadgumit.
We played some more in the water and D got really into finding seashells while G and daddy built a monster of sand castles...
Then we found a crab trying to sneak up on the beach and we got him.. D was elated... we put him in a pail with sand and seawater and he was doing good... then boom.. I found 2 hermit crabs being pushed in from the ocean and snagged them up and set the up the same way...

Of course this started my 2 year old running around yelling in excitement.. "I GOT CRABS!! I GOT CRABS!!"

The young and old got a real kick out of this.

Finally, while in the ocean we realized that G had begun to turn blue from the lips and it was spreading to the cheeks.... TIME TO WARM UP KIDDOS.

Of course since we have to pass 2 pools to get to the room, we decided what the heck...
the pool felt like bathwater and it relaxed me so much I peed 3 times with in the hour we were in the pool.

Once the boys got inside and got good baths and we got settled, I took another look of the wound and we all decided I really should have sucked it up and got stitches.. Oh well.


Day 2, Tuesday July 7th
Dammit... thunderstorms
Dammit... should have brought the pails with the crabs off the balcony because the freshwater rain was just to much and what a disappointment to the boys to have 3 crabs belly up in less than 24 hours of having them.

Lets do some more laundry.. and let the boys watch a movie...
Now it is 9am and we are at a loss because the thunderstorm is predicted all day.

FEELS LIKE A SIGHTSEEING DAY.

after a morning snack, we headed out to check out Gulf Shores and figured we would find a good seafood place to eat for lunch...

Once the boys got in the car they figured it was nap time so we took advantage and just drove around and looked and scouted out stuff to do... Outlet Mall was out because it is outdoors.... I guess we could hit a souvenir shop after we ate...

Hazels.... it advertised seafood and a buffet... how much better can you get?

Turns out, a lot better... their seafood consisted of crab cakes and shrimp... and the buffet had fried chicken, grilled chicken, mashed taters and green beans...

Well, it was good, but wasn't what we were looking for, but oh well.

After that we hit a local hotspot.. Walgreens.. I needed to get some medical supplies for a recent incident involving a kitchen utensil.... that is when the boys spotted the shark...

A local souvenir shop has a sharks mouth as the entrance to its establishment and the boys just had to enter the belly of the beast... along with every other single person in Gulf Shores at the moment...

We had a good time and the boys had a blast picking up souvenirs for Jenny... of course, we had to remind them about other people on their lists... but we knew who they were thinking about.

Oh and a word of caution for those who will be receiving gifts from D... he goes for simple shopping.. he finds something HE likes, then starts filling him arms with the exact same thing while naming people off... you have no idea how many pink and green stuffed dolphins I had to return while his was distracted.

Your welcome.

Then we came back to the hotel after that and miraclously the sun was shinning and it felt like beach weather...

Dilemma time... make the boys get their naps in... our say screw it and head them down to enjoy a sunny afternoon on the beach.

We are big suckers.

As we were heading out, D never got it out of his head that the nice warm pool was so much better than the ice cold ocean water.... we pushed the ocean.

We played in sand and G wanted to play in the waves...

D wanted nothing to do with touching the water...

We buried each other in sand and we got alot of sand time in... both boys were cover and every now and then G would get up and go play in the water and wash off the sand...

D wanted nothing to do with touching the water....

D started getting fussing around 5 and we figured he was pretty tired and we could tell that the sand was really starting to irritate his skin since he had it in every orifice he has.

We made him suck it up and took him kicking and screaming into the water to wash him off... after we came out he was so mad and so tired and so hungry he begged to go back to the room. Momma and D went back to the room to get a hot bath and to settle in for dinner...

G wasn't too far behind.

Dinner, settling and off to dreamland they lay now.

**Pictures will be posted when we return home and get settled on the 12th or 13th.... I will try to update as much as possible... daily is my goal.

***We have some house updates too... Footer for the house are being set up and laid out in the next few days, the slab for the garage will hopefully be done by the end of the week and they are scheduled to start framing it up the beginning of next week. I have pictures of the land as we were setting the post to lay out the framing but it was mostly pictures of the large yard that I am considering a riding lawnmower for.