Destin Trip Day 7 (&8) - Last Day At The Beach

Friday was our last full day at the beach.  Since our kids had been pretty fussy at the beach each day, we decided instead of heading down first thing in the morning, we would go shopping at the outlets for a little bit first. We figured that way we could get them down to the beach for longer in the afternoon.

After shopping and naps, we soaked up as much beach time as possible.  It was a crazy day at the beach.  While Evan was napping and I was sitting by the pool, I could see all kinds of commotion at the beach.  My nieces ran up to the house and said a shark or other large sea creature came very close to shore.   Shawn and Julie were in the water and saw the shadow of it, but didn't see a fin.  They were thinking a manatee, but a lifeguard farther down the beach said he saw it and thought shark.  So who knows.  About an hour after that happened, we saw several very large sting rays swimming close to shore.  We could see them from standing on the sand.  So once again, this caused lots of commotion on the beach.  Needless to say, there weren't too many people swimming in the ocean the rest of that day!

Since my parents (and their friends) watched our kids the night before, they were going out to dinner themselves on this night.  So the rest of us decided to go out to dinner at The Back Porch and then take the kids to play mini golf at The Track.  Before we left, we decided to try family pics 1 more time.

Because of the humidity, my camera would fog up for several minutes when it went from being inside to being outside.  So bummed that my lens was still fogged up for this pic.

This was the first time the kids have been to mini golf.  Shawn and I didn't even attempt to play as we knew it would be quite the task to get these 2 to play.  Evan just wanted to pick up the ball and throw it into the cup.  Em tried playing the right way, but just got bored and really just wanted to take pictures with the fake animals along the course.  We ended up letting the kids play each hole about 4-5 times before we moved on to the next hole because we were moving too fast.

It started raining on us when we were driving back to the house Friday night.  It was thundering outside which means Em wouldn't go to bed in her room.  So that means Shawn got kicked out of bed to the couch and I slept in the bed with Emily and Evan.  And I thought I wasn't sleeping well with just Evan in the bed. . haha. 


It was pouring when we woke up Saturday morning and I was just hoping our flight would get out!  Shawn and Kevin packed up the cars and headed out.  Their plan was to drive half way and stay the night and then finish up on Sunday.  Shawn took all our stuff with him again.  Me, the kids, and my parents hopped in the car and drove back to Pensacola in the rain.  Thankfully Evan did sleep a little bit on the drive!  By the time we got to the airport, the rain had stopped and our flight was still on time!  The airport arrival didn't go nearly as well as when we departed TX.  My parents had to go through a different security line than me and the kids (a pre-screened one) which meant I struggled with getting 2 kids and myself through.  No fun.  Then Evan decided it would be so fun to just run from me.  Why I didn't have his backpack on is beyond me. I think I was so tired from the night before, I just didn't think of it.  Let's just say by the time we got on the plane, I was sweating and totally done!!  For the most part, Evan did well on the plane.  Just like earlier, he was content for the first hour and then antsy the last 30 minutes.  We made it to DFW a little earlier than scheduled and of course our gate wasn't ready, so we had to wait another very long 10 minutes for that to be ready.  Let's just say Evan was sitting on the floor in front of his seat, even though they told us everyone needed to stay in their seat with their seat belt fastened.  Yeah, that goes out the window when you have a tired and cranky 2 yo.  Haha.  We managed to get our luggage and get to the car, which is when the real fun started.  Evan's lovey was packed away in the trunk of the car which resulted in a very unhappy boy.  He cried the entire 45 minute drive back to my parent's house.  It was a very long car ride!  I think my parent's couldn't wait for us to leave once we got to their house!  Haha.   Shawn made it home around lunchtime on Sunday and I spent the day doing mountains of laundry!

Overall, we had a really great time and it was fun spending time with all my family. I loved seeing Destin and hope we can visit again in the future!   But like several of my co-workers say, when you travel with kids, it's a trip, not a vacation.  That's soo true!  I felt like I needed another week off just to recover from the trip.