Beach Vacation Part 1 - Santa Rosa Beach, Florida

On Sunday, July 3rd at 5:30 a.m. our family (Marvin, ,myself, and the kids) left for the beach!!! I haven't seen the beach in 7 years and I have been way more excited than even the kids.  We headed for Santa Rosa Beach, Florida to visit Marvin's sister and brother-in-law.  We survived a 9 hour drive with the kids and only 2 stops!  They were so good, we stopped once right outside of Jackson and once just on the other side of Mobile, Alabama.  I've never been to their house before and it is really beautiful! They live across the street from the beach in a beautiful two story house with a pool and a golf course in their back yard! We played in the pool and went to the beach and pretty much just hung out around the house.  Shortly before we left Gene took us on a quick tour of the area and they are only a few miles down the road from where the movie The Truman Show was filmed! The water was crystal clear and the sand was beautiful, the only thing was a large amount of seaweed was coming in but the kids had a blast anyway.  Camden loved the water and jumping into the pool off the edge.  Neil will definately be having swimming lessons soon, that little dare devil kept wandering into the ocean or just stepping off into the pool! He isn't scared of anything. We ate lunch on Monday, July 4th and then left for Orange Beach, Alabama.  We have a hotel room here until Thursday and I'll be posting more throughout the week!!!  Here are some pictures from the first part of our trip....I wish I had more from their visit, hopefully I can sweet talk Gene into sending me some of the pictures he took.  He is a really great photographer and I know he had to have gotten some much better pictures than me.  But for now these will have to do!

First stop McDonalds for breakfast around 7:30 a.m.

Second stop Cracker Barrell around 12:30 for lunch

Camden loves putting things together

Neil likes to eat crayons

The pool at Aunt Wendy's

Big girl!

Neil loved throwing things in the pool.