Quick Beach Trip

Last Tuesday (April 15th!) signified the end of busy season at work. Woo hoo! While I do audits and not taxes and my busy season is really January-March, it is still a sigh of relief to see April get here. April usually means warmer weather and everyone is ready to be outside, so we planned our second annual crawfish boil on the top of the parking deck. It was miserable. The weather did not cooperate one bit. While it was sunny, there was hurricane force winds and freezing temps. The boys did not stay long! They did stay long enough for Hudson to eat about 15 crawfish. He LOVED them. Kept going back for more. Harrison, on the other hand, was terrified of them. Me too, buddy. I can't eat something that is looking at me! :)

 

 

We had this great idea that since we both had a few days off work, me for the end of busy season and Joel had holidays for Easter, that it would be a perfect time for a little pre-summer quick trip to the beach before coming back for Easter. We had not planned on packing bathing suits AND fleeces in the same bag (it was in the 80's the day before we got there!), but that's what we did. And we wore them together! Ha! And that little piece of blue sky you see in the corner of the picture below...well that's the only piece of blue sky we saw while we were down there!

It was cold and windy and rainy the entire time, but that didn't stop these boys from going down to the beach and even getting IN the (non-heated) swimming pool! Joel and I warned them not to go off the stairs because no one was going to get them! Ha! They, well really Harrison as Hudson can swim pretty good, complied. Their teeth were chattering, but they had the best time!

 Crazy!!! They swam for a long time. We could not believe it.

Thursday night we headed to our fave...the Red Bar. It never disappoints and the kids love the music. Hudson told us he was going home with the drummer. He really loved the drummer. :)

 Friday was torrential downpours all day long. We tried to go shopping at the outlets, and while that's never really that fun with two kids anyway, it really wasn't fun this time. But, we got what we needed and then we had promised the boys we would eat lunch and watch the boats in Destin. We picked Dewey's because we were able to sit outside on the porch (the walls were enclosed with plastic) and had a great view of the boats that were docked. Obviously no one was out in them that day!

The rain finally stopped for a brief period and we did see the sun one time...for about 5 minutes, before the rain came back. We ran outside to take a few pics.

We all had been in pj's since we got back from lunch because we got drenched, so we were styling. One thing about this trip was that we got a lot of sleep, and honestly, above all else, that is what we needed. We played a lot of musical beds (thanks to Harrison who couldn't make up his mind where he wanted to sleep), but everyone napped and everyone slept in every day, which was great.

 We did puzzles and games, watched movies, and were generally just lazy. It really was a good time even though we couldn't do much outside. We did hit up the donut truck in Alys Beach the last day, which was great.

It wasn't raining Saturday morning so we headed down to the beach. The boys really wanted to dig a hole before we had to leave. We stayed out for a long time and Harrison finally came around to liking the sand. Small victories!

 I just wanted to prove I was at the beach too!

I could not believe Harrison allowed this, but he loved it. We all went home with sand in our shorts, but it was a good morning!

Of course when we started home, the clouds were starting to part and the sun was going to come out that afternoon. Oh well. We still had fun, and Hudson is already asking me when we can go back again. It's good to know that we can go down to the beach in the "off-season" and be just fine.