Panama City

We got to the airport and everything was operating as normal as we watched Tutu's place leave.

As we were lining up to board our plane for Denver, there was an announcement. "We need four passengers to offer their seats and we'll give them the next flight out tomorrow with complimentary hotel stays and food vouchers and free round trip tickets with Delta." I looked at Ryan and thought...well, the boys were awesome with the flight down, let's do it! Seriously, four round trip tickets for the family. In my mind, that equates to savings for a one-night extended stay - - all thanks to Delta. Well - - - that's what we got! We already were planning our trip with the free tickets in hand - - is it back to Florida, LegoLand in San Diego, Washington DC, or somewhere new? Anyway, we got our things and headed into Panama City, Florida.

They plopped us down next to the mall and we decided that was the only place to go so off we went. The food options weren't great so we opted for room service. Because of the fact that Jack was awesome with pooping, we let him pick out his first package of underwear. He chose a Glow in the Dark Spiderman assortment. He proudly carried that bag around that a badge of honor. It was. Eban saw a bouncing thing and we said he could do that. It was fun to see him to a big kid activity. Obviously my cell phone doesn't take great pictures, but you get the drift.

After our hotel movie and dinner on our beds, we promptly went to bed to catch our flight out in the morning.

It was great and then we all had first class to Denver!! Yippee---the boys were good in first class so that was a big bonus.

Ahhhh....until next year and our next beach trip!

Mexico Beach Part II

While we were in the water, we could see little fish around our ankles and the kids loved this. The locals informed us they were pin fish and they were so excited to find remnants of pin fish on the beaches when we would hunt for shells. I hunted for coral - - that was my favorite pasttime.

Due to the sea life, Jack received new flip flops from the local market. He chose crab flip flops as he wore out his other pair. He simply LOVED his crab flip flops.

On the Jack stories, we FINALLY obtained Code Brown on this trip. After many days and weeks of pushing him to use the potty, he finally sat on the toilet and did his business. We couldn't have been more thrilled and excited as he was stubborn as all get out with pooping.

For Tutu's birthday, we went all out and drove to the local market to get ice cream and then walk on the Mexico Beach Pier. All was wonderful until Eban licked his bubble gum ice cream scoop off and therefore, into the street. Of course, there was a major meltodown and we continued walking. That's what I remember from that evening and eavesdropping on the locals. The locals had a major accent -- southern mixed with something else. I just loved it.

In fact, one day when we were walking to the beach, a local walked past Uncle Steve and said, "Don't pay us no mind." We all remembered that line!

Finally, we had a big outing to Apalachicola. This was a quaint city where the fisherman dock that's inland from the ocean. Loved this cute town. We found a restaurant called Boss Oyster and immediately fell in love. Ryan and Stephen ate a TON of oysters...some with caviar and some with other stuff. Tutu and I didn't share in their excitement of oysters but they said they were amazing. I take their word on that. We sat at a table on the water and loved it. A bird even came down and snatched something from our table so that was fun. As we drove home (45 minutes or so and our LONGEST outing since we had arrived), Eban was sitting with Tutu and was moaning about the drive. Finally, he exclaimed, "TUTU AND I CAN'T STAND ANOTHER MINUTE!" I loved how he threw her under the bus with him as he wanted to be home and not driving home. The sunset was phenomenal as we drove home...I had to stop and take some pictures as it was inspirational.

We did go out to eat one more time before we left...it was to a local favorite called Rodeo. They are known for their char-grilled steaks. THEY were delicious...unbelievable! We celebrated our last night with sparklers...

Finally, it was time to leave. It's always said leaving the beach. Always.

We headed out of town and stopped at Applebee's for a pit stop when Jack informed me that he had to use the toilet. My goodness was I excited when he did this on his own accord!! We had a celebration for him and he knew we were so proud of his big boy choice!! (Selfishly, I'm thinking we can FINALLY save on all these diapers!)

We get to the airport and see Tutu off (my goodness look how tan they are below). Our flight was about an hour after hers so it was perfect timing BUT

...to be continued...

Mexico Beach!

We finally arrived to sunny, Panama Beach and met up with Uncle Steve and Tutu. We hopped in a minivan and drove 45 minutes to Mexico Beach. Our first impression was that Mexico Beach hadn't been updated in years and it exudes a quaint beach town feel without any of the updates that other towns embraced. There wasn't a McDonalds or Starbucks and only has mom and pop shops that adorn the highway.

We found our cute little beach rental called Sis's Place and hunkered down for about a minute before hightailing it to the beach...which was a stone's throw from our back porch!

Every day was wonderful and the kids only wanted to go to the beach. Uncle Steve and Ryan would head over to the Shell Shack - - a genuine shack - - and get steamed shrimp for the day and every morning started with shrimp and grits then the beach. Period. That was pretty much the plan - - and maybe find seashells but mostly it was swimming. We thought about deep-sea fishing but decided against it as the kids truly loved swimming every day. We even saw dolphins in the distance every day and that was memorable as well!

When we were indoors, we worked on puzzles that the homeowner had and ate picnic lunches before heading back out to the beach. I'm getting better at going to the beach as the kids love it so much. Eban started to swim on his own while we were there so that was a big milestone. Then Aunt Eileen and all the cousins came over for a day's visit and they hopped right into the water. They also brought water toys so the boys were in 7th heaven. Eileen busied herself with teaching Eban had to swim a stroke so that was fun to see that! She would use a Buzz Lightyear catch phrase, "Reach for the Sky." And Eban did. Shannon was huge with her twins so it was a BIG plus that she made the trip over to see us!

There were some minor meltdowns - - due to the burrs on the wodden pathway to the beach, sometimes we would get some stuck in our toes or such. Eban would lose his marbles and yell about them. Jack would only cry. It was interesting to see how they reacted differently to the same issue.

View from our Beach - -

Getting to Florida - - for the second time in the summer of 2011

Words can't describe the mayhem of getting to Florida. Moreover, I need to applaud my children for loving every minute of the craziness that was our trip to get to Mexico Beach.

Tutu invited us to a beach house in Mexico Beach for her birthday. She was savvy enough to realize we should get there a day early since no flights would allow us to get there on Satruday by noon when we could check in. We agreed that we could fly in to Panama Beach and stay the night there and pick them up in the morning when Tutu and Uncle Steve arrived from Chicago.

Best made plans are meant to be broken...right?

In the following pictures from my cell phone, you can see Jack or Eban witnessing the crazed passengers after we deboarded a full flight due to a mechanical error. I love their vantage point of the mayhem while we sorted out who would do what to get us to Florida. So I got in line while Ryan tried to call United to change our flights so that we could arrive in time. I was the third or so in line and it took an hour to get to a desk agent.

After a lot of looking at various schedules, it was deemed that we should fly to Atlanta and then onto Tampa to stay the night. They said they'd put us up and that we'd fly from Tampa to Atlanta on the 6am flight and then get to Panama Beach by 10am. At this point, our luggage was 'who knows where'.

So we readied ourselves for the big day and off we went to catch our back-up flight. We only had two back packs and since Jack wasn't potty trained yet, most of one back pack were filled up with clothes for the boys in the event of any accidents and toys for them.

When we finally landed in Tampa after a day long flight excursion, we were grubby and dirty. The hotel was attached to the airport and it had a revolving restaurant at the top of the hotel. The kids thought this was WAY cool. We celebrated our long travel day with shirley temples and sushi. It was pretty cool and there was even a live piano man which was fun.

We crashed shortly thereafter and woke up early to catch our flight to Panama Beach. Some of us were bright eyed and bushy tailed while others needed copious amounts of coffee...imagine that?