Skip to main content

A Beautiful Vacation: Panama City Beach Florida

As our first official family vacation, I'd say it was ideal. 4 days and 3 nights of playing in the sand and warm water, eating good food, and relaxing at a cozy Airbnb. It was perfect for our family of four with a two year old and 3 month old.I felt so alive and so happy during these days. I felt like I could do anything! These pictures bring me so much joy and I am beyond grateful we had some time to make memories and just be a family. Panama City Beach, you will always be special to me. And thank you for the warm water and white sands.

Day 1: Friday 30 August 2019. Laguna Beach, Fl.








Our cottage was perfect, and across the street from the beach!

Evening beach trip to a public Panama City Beach before bed 









A fun trip to Pelican Ice Cream Parlor before bed!





Saturday 31 August, 2019. Dolphin and Snorkel Cruise to Shell Island.



This kid was a champ during our trip and napped so well during all of our excursions!


Both kids did SO well in the water! Baby boy was a champ with getting his face sprayed with ocean water whenever we played in the waves.



Adelai was the highlight on the boat! She made SO many friends and was the center of attention during our trip back to the marina.




Saturday night we went out for dinner and Adelai tried her first crab, gator, and oyster!




Sunday 1 September 2019. Church, conservation park walk, and movies at the cottage.

Marshall took her on a sunrise walk so that I could have some quiet as I nursed the baby.







Monday 2 September 2019. Thomas' Donuts on the beach and St. Andrews State Park


Enjoying doughnuts from a neighborhood bakery at 6:30 AM on the beach will always be a special memory for me.



Adelai chose a "sprinkler" doughnut for her morning snack







 On our way back home, we stopped and bought boiled peanuts at a roadside stand and enjoyed the southern snack!









Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hoping for a Rainbow

I'm really not sure if I ever thought this day would come. The day that I made it past 13 weeks pregnant without losing the baby. #miracle.  I know I am not out of the woods yet, and honestly, when are we really? I am just trying to live every day with gratitude for the life inside of me, living with hope for the future.  Part of me wanted to wait until next week, when I was past 14 weeks and officially in the 2nd trimester, but I couldn't wait any longer. I've been getting a little thick in the middle, which is getting more difficult to hide, and I feel like I haven't been able to be completely honest with friends when they would ask, "how are you doing?" All I wanted to talk about was how nauseous I was or how nervous I felt. So now, the news is out, whether or not you already suspected something was up.  Seriously though, the 1st trimester is not for the faint of heart! There were many instances when I thought I would lose the baby, but dee...

Grandpa is Always Right | Gender Reveal |

I was hanging out in our rental apartment in Salzburg, Austria with my sister when my dad walked out of his bedroom and announced that I was having a girl. I was only 11 weeks along at that point and while I was wishfully hoping for a girl, I was preparing myself for a boy. His strong conviction of the gender of our child without any hints from an ultrasound surprised me. My dad seems to always be right about things, so I secretly hoped he was right this time too. Today during my scan, my favorite sonographer announced that we were having a girl. Grandpa is always right. I never imagined our family starting with a baby boy. I don't know why, but a baby girl seems to fit just perfectly. Now I just have to keep calm and stay healthy for 19 more weeks.

Learning to Speak Like an Alaskan

Denali in the background No one wants to feel like a newbie, so a common practice before traveling to a new city or country is to learn the language of that particular place.  Well, when my Aunt Joan picked me up from the airport last December when I first arrived in Alaska, one of the first things she told me was if I didn't want to sound like a tourist, I needed to refer to Mt. Mckinley (the tallest mountain in North America, located some 120 miles south of Fairbanks) as Denali .  Denali is the native Athabaskan name for the mountain, and means "The High One."  So, from day number one in Alaska, I refered to that majestic mountain as Denali instead of the name I had learned growing up.  This is just about what it looked like yesterday morning! Another thing I learned recently is how to say the temperature.  I was saying "Gosh it's cold outside because it's negative 30 degrees."  But luckily, a kind skating mom...