Beach-Lovin' Family

For Memorial Weekend our family journeyed down to Panama City Beach, Florida for some sun and fun. This trip was spur-of-the-moment, sort of. To me spur-of-the-moment usually means less than a week or two of planning. In actuality, we made our reservations on a Wednesday and headed down there on Saturday morning. Not as much planning time as I like but still enough to pull together what needed done.

We elected to keep the trip a secret from the girls so they didn't know anything was up. Saturday morning I taught my usual class then came home to clean up. When that was done we told the girls to get in the van because we had some things to do. They obeyed and off we went. After a while they began asking where we were going and we just said we had some friends we were off to visit and left it at that. After about three hours Morgan finally began complaining about why we had to drive so far to see friends. We were within about 10 miles of the beach when she finally put it together and it made for the best surprise we could've asked for! The girls were thrilled to get to go to the beach and have all weekend to enjoy it!

During OIF 1 I got to know the wife and children of James' platoon sergeant fairly well. They moved away from here back in November 2003 in favor of returning to their hometown~~Panama City. Whenever we head down there we try to look them up for a quick visit to keep in touch. James and Freddie have a great time remembering "old times" and Darlus and I enjoy chatting while the four girls we have between us all play well together. It makes for some terrific memories.


This visit was different, however, in that Freddie and Darlus had just purchased their own boat a few weeks before and invited us to join them on it. They picked us up (in their boat) at the lagoon by our hotel and off we went across the gulf waters. We were on the lookout for dolphins the whole time but they stayed out of sight until later that night when one lonely dolphin jumped in front of our boat, giving Morgan a thrill!

Freddie drove us out to Shell Island which is only accessible by boats. It's uninhabited and beautiful. The water threat level was at two red flags which meant no one should be in the water swimming due to the waves and danger so we didn't stay long. Mostly we just held onto the kids and let some waves knock them over a few times and then allowed them to dig in the sand as the sun set behind us. We then hopped back on the boat and Freddie drove us across the bay back to our hotel.


The next day we headed to St. Andrews State Park for some simple beach time in some very shallow water. Darlus and her girls met us there for an hour or so which gave the kids more time to play together. After a few hours of swimming and sand-castle building we heard thunder rolling and decided (along with the throngs of other beach-goers) that it was time to pack up and leave before the storm was on top of us. We went back to the hotel to clean up and rest a bit before going out to dinner.



Dinner was delicious--how can you go wrong with fresh seafood??? I thoroughly enjoyed my crab leg feast while James devoured his shrimp. The girls ate whatever it was they ordered and then kept occupied watching for dolphins again as we were eating outdoors right on the water. It was a yummy meal!


Our last morning we headed to a bakery that we've always wanted to try but had never seen open before. This time it was open, and BUSY, so we popped in to grab some pastries before heading back to the beach for a final hour or so of water time before cleaning up and heading home. Or so we thought.

Breakfast was peaceful and relaxing sitting by the water. The girls found several hermit crabs after they'd eaten and decided to have a hermit crab race with them. They gave them names and rooted for their favorites. I'm pretty sure it's a memory we'll all carry with us for quite some time.



The plan was to clean up now, grab a quick bite on the way out of town (even though we weren't hungry yet) and hit the road for the 3 1/2 hour drive home. However, because we weren't hungry yet but we couldn't see leaving town without one more seafood meal, we decided to kill a little time with another tourist-y attraction. We took in the Ripley's Believe it or Not! museum. Morgan has always wanted to go to one of these as she gets such a kick out of stuff like that so we obliged. It was interesting to say the least.

After the museum we were ready for lunch so we drove around looking for something that would meet our needs and after a while we found what we wanted. After a final seafood meal we were ready to hit the road home. Everyone was tanned (and then some!), fed, happy, and exhausted.

One of my favorite memories will be discovering what Morgan had written in the sand while she was off by herself. It says, "I love my Momma."


We had had a great Memorial Weekend that came only one week after James returned home. We found ourselves frequently saying how interesting it was that he had still been in Iraq barely 8 days before and suddenly, here he was, sitting on the beach, watching for dolphins, hanging in a boat with his old buddy, watching his daughters race hermit crabs, and so on. Quite a culture shock. And yet, so very right and real and restful.

How happy and complete we feel to have Daddy home. It doesn't get much better.