Beach Vacation

We took our 2nd beach trip as a family to Panama City Beach the week of June 19-24, 2012. 

Beach Bound...Success!

When we arrived, late Tuesday night, Brady wanted to find everything in the beach house that was breakable.  He found this seashell and enjoyed telling us all about it.

On Wednesday, we headed down to the beach in the morning. John had some work to do (he's in the back emailing some things), so Brady and I played in the sand and took pictures.

Love these adorable beach sand feet!

Brady thought it was so much fun to dump the sand on his head.

He saw these birds while he was playing and took off after them.

Looking at the ocean! 

After we played in the sand, we headed down to the water to put Brady's feet in.  He LOVED it!  The water was very rough, so we didn't take him in.  In fact, when we first got down to the beach, there were two guys carrying a woman in from the water.

Famly pic.

We stayed down there for about an hour and a half, then headed inside for baths and a nap for Brady.

After Brady woke up, we headed to Destin for some shopping at the Outlets.  It was hot, so we stopped for some gelato!  We all enjoyed it!

We then headed to Destin Commons to let Brady play in the fountains.  It was such a nice night, and Brady was having so much fun, we ended up just eating dinner at the places around the fountain.

Love this pic of him having fun!

Thursday, we woke up and headed back down to the beach.  This time, we brought a pool for Brady to play in.  We were a little worried he would only want to play in the ocean, and since it was so rough, we needed something to distract him.  Success, he loved playing in the pool!

One of my favorite things we did, while we were down on the beach, was Brady would sit in my lap while the water came up to us.  I could have sat there all day with him.  He fell asleep a few times.

After the beach, we headed out to lunch at Sharky's.  I enjoyed my lunch holding Brady...

and John enjoyed his!

After lunch, we headed to Gulf World for the day!  We had so much fun, but it was hot!

Brady loved watching the sea lions drink water from a hose.

He also enjoyed watching the penguins.

Who knew that sea turtles liked paci's too!

We saw a few shows, Reptile Show, Sea Lion Show, and the Dolphin Show.

That night, we headed to Captain Anderson's for dinner.  While waiting, we enjoyed a nice walk looking at all the boats.

Brady also did a little shopping (which means he took everything off of the shelves).  Whatever it takes to keep him occupied and happy!

We had a wonderful dinner and had a great table right next to the window, which gave us a great view of the boats coming into dock.

Friday morning, we woke up and headed to the beach again.  John enjoyed making sandcastles, and Brady enjoyed knocking them down.



While I was trying to lay out, John and Brady took a walk on the beach.  My laying out didn't last long, because I wanted to join them.

Loving the beach!

After the beach, we headed to Seaside for lunch!  We had a wonderful lunch at Pizza Bar sharing a delicious Italian pizza and a caprese salad.  Brady took a nice nap while we enjoyed our lunch!

After lunch, we walked around a little bit and did some shopping.  We got a snow cone to eat, but it was so hot, so we decided to eat it in the car while we headed to Destin.

Brady's favorite thing, and ours, was to go to the fountain, so we headed back to Destin Commons.  We also enjoyed looking at the fish at the Bass Pro Shop.

We went to the fountains everynight, but one, while we were there.

After the fountains, we headed to John's favorite restaurant at the beach, McGuires.  Yum!  Brady took a nap while we waited for our table.

He woke up and played with the sugars at the table.  John took him into the gift shop while we were waiting on our dinner to arrive, since he got fussy, and he found a ball there that he wanted.  John didn't buy it, but during dinner Brady would point to the direction of the gift shop after dinner and say, "Ball.".  Of course we had to buy it for him.  After dinner, we let him walk into the gift shop, and he went right up to the ball, picked it up, and walked out.  It was cute!  On the way home, we stopped at Shakey's and had a delicious frozen custard!  This has become a tradition of ours!

Saturday morning, Brady and I headed to Thomas' to get donuts.  They have the best donuts, but the wait is so long.  I don't know what I was thinking waiting in line with a one year old, but we waited for 45 minutes.  It was hot, but I wanted donuts.

After our delicious donuts, we went back down to the beach.  Within 5 minutes of us getting down there, the rain came, so we headed back inside.

John and Brady played cards.  Brady loved to take the cards and throw them all over the beach house.

That night we headed to the Crab Trap in Destin for dinner.

Brady loved running up and down this ramp while we waited for dinner.

We were very lucky on this trip, and always got a great table right next to the window.  The view of the ocean was beautiful.

 After dinner, we headed back to Destin Commons for Brady to play in the fountains.  I decided to leave my camera in the car, so I could just enjoy our last day there, instead of being behind the camera.  I wish I would have brought it, because Brady also rode the train (he loves trains) and we all rode a space ship ride together.  We had such a great night!

Sunday morning we woke up to rain!  It was supposed to rain all day, so we packed up and headed home. 

 Brady enjoyed playing with these balls (another love of his) on the way home.  He got the soccer ball one at the gift shop at McGuires.  He decided it would be fun to play a game of ball in the car too!



We had a wonderful vacation!  It's so nice to get away from work and chores, and head to the beach to spend quality time together as a family of 3!