Our yearly family vacation with my parents - this year to PCB again- started off by loading up the car and by 0730 we had Ref dropped off at doggy day care to begin our fun filled week. We made a run through McDonalds for breakfast and then Starbucks for some coffee then we hit the interstate!
Made a pit stop for some gas and good ole gas station snacks!
Ahhhhh, peace and quiet!
For lunch we found a Chick-fil-a and I ordered ahead on the app thinking it would be faster. What seemed like an hour later, we were finally eating and back on the road! On the way down mom and I usually start a grocery list of what we need so that when we get to the house we can make a quick run to Walmart to get what we need for the week. Covid made that a little difficult this year as the line out of Walmart was ridiculously long! Target was next door with no line out the door so we chose to go there instead!
Sunday morning started off with breakfast then off to spend the day at the beach!!!
Beach Bums!
I'm normally a coffee drinker in the morning and for some reason I chose not to drink any this day. I ended up with a really bad migraine and chose to stay home and sleep it off while everyone went out to dinner.
They ate dinner at Bayou Bills and came home with buckets and shovels to play in the sand. Mom brought these cool coloring pages from home to keep the boys busy and they loved it!
I was feeling so much better after my nap. We spent the rest of the night snuggling on the couch!
Monday was at the beach again - of course!
To break it up we moved over to the pool for a little bit. They get tired of the sand and like to get out their goggles to dive for things.
Dinner that night was at Sharky's. The boys love to eat here and ask if we are going there every year!
On Tuesday we planned a pool day with Jake and Katie Dorak who just so happened to be vacationing at the same time - unplanned! We seem to do that a lot. I few years back we were at Disney at the same time too! There were a few scattered showers and we were back and forth from the pool to their room a couple times.
These boys! They sure do love hanging out together!
And so do all of us!
Cant forget about these two cuties!
For dinner we chose to find a new place to eat. We found this hole in the wall place in a strip mall called Dee's Hangout. Probably the best food we ate all week!
Wednesday morning started super early, like 4 am. We planned an 8 hour chartered fishing trip. Dad was up all night with stomach trouble so he wasn't able to go. I honestly wasn't too excited about it since we had a bad experience last year when we didn't catch a single fish to take home. But how could you not love this view?
We had an awesome first mate, Mark, who made sure we had everything we needed. Here he is picking up some live bait to fish with.
Because we were up so early these boys couldn't hang. All of them ended up taking a nap at some point.
So pretty .....
Somehow out of no where we had a visitor. He didn't stay long and not quite sure where he went to afterwards.
Playing a game on - you guessed it - a phone before making it to our fishing spot.
Captian Tim
Mark fired up the Egg to cook some sausages for lunch.
They were so good!
Reeling in a big one!
Yay we finally caught some fish!
Waiting for the next one....
Captain Tim let him drive for a minute! He loves driving boats!
Our catch getting weighed and ready to head over to the monger to be cut up and packaged to take home.
Eating ice cream while we wait...
Our boat
See you later Miss Rachel!
Spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool! For dinner, dad went and picked some crab legs and shrimp at a local steamer and we ate in that night.
Thursday was another day at the beach. Some other kids dug out a big hole the evening before so they played in it for a little while and made a fort.
While we were there we were expected to see the Sahara Dust come through. As you can see its rather foggy and remained like that for the day. But there was still plenty of sunshine!
Dinner was at Dusty's. The boys can go through some crab claws and that has become one of their favorite things to eat in Florida! We also found the sheets they colored last year still stapled on the wall!
Friday was our last day there so of course we spent it on the beach. I got up and made myself a Bloody Mary and made my way to the edge of the water. I wanted to spend as much time as I could there that last day. It is my happy place after all!
Dad teaching Liam how to boogie board.
For dinner we decided to go to Pier Park.
Outside waiting for our table to be ready at Pompono Joe's.
And Dippin Dots for dessert!
The boys talked all week about going to ride the Ferris wheel at Pier Park. When they saw the bungee jumping thing they quickly changed their minds.
Saturday came by way too fast. I wasn't ready for vacation to be over. We got up that morning and packed everything back into the van. We didn't eat breakfast because the plan was to just stop somewhere quick on the way out. The route we took had a lot of back roads and 3 hours later we still hadn't eaten because we had not passed a single restaurant. By 1pm we finally found a Waffle House to eat. Needless to say we were all HANGRY! Ryan and I took turns driving and finally made it home. Our next adventure will be Outer Banks in October for fall break!
