Ready or Not... Here We Come

I'll vote for NOT READY!!!

Today we packed up our stuff... a WHOLE LOT of stuff... and headed back to reality. Usually I can say that by the end of vacation, I am ready to come home. I couldn't say that this time. It's been a REALLY long time since I have gone off for a whole week, but it was so so so wonderful and MUCH needed.

I missed Finley Dog. We picked him up as soon as we got back into town. He stayed with Mrs. Donna- at Donna's Doggie Daycare- again. She always does such a good job taking care of him. I don't worry near as much about leaving him because I know she takes good care of him and he isn't stuffed in a kennel all day. He was VERY happy to see us. Besides that, I really think I could have stayed down at the beach another couple of weeks... or years!

Since I left off on Tuesday, here is a recap of the rest of our trip. Sorry this is really lengthy... it was a fun trip with lots of good memories. You know I can't ever decide on one or two pictures...

Wednesday, we went out to the beach again.
Annistyn wore her pink frog swimsuit. It's really 2 pieces- which is nice! It covers her like a 1-piece though (also nice!)



She enjoyed playing in the sand again. The sand toys kept her entertained a while.




She thought about playing in the water...



But decided on just burying herself in the sand instead...



The beach was really pretty again.



It was kind of windy, but it was nice. Annistyn enjoyed the wind blowing...



She always laughs and then looks around like, "Where is this coming from?"



I walked around and found a few more sea shells to add to her collection. She enjoyed putting those in and out of her bucket.







And here's my favorite picture from Wednesday...



She would NOT wear her glasses or hat around, but I got her to be still in them for a quick picture.

We ate a late lunch at Red Brick Pizza and then Michael came down Wednesday afternoon. We went to Sharky's for dinner. She picked out her crab outfit to wear out. (I let her choose her outfit each night... I like for her to make her own choices about some things. Since I had already selected the beach-themed outfits to bring, I let her pick which day to wear each of them.)

Here she is showing me her crab...


And here she is not cooperating for a picture...


And with Mommy... who didn't dry her hair for the 3rd day in a row! :)



I took one with her and her Daddy, but neither of them cooperated. They were both making funny faces...


Thursday Annistyn slept late again- we woke her up at 10:15. She'd been asleep since 8 the night before. Do you think they would have noticed if we took the drapes home????
It was Michael's first day with us on the beach. I know he was really excited about playing with Annistyn in the sand.




We tried making a sand castle, but quickly realized neither of us knew how to do that very well.



This is as good as it got.



I know, pitiful!
We put some water in Annistyn's big beach bucket and she enjoyed playing with it...



She sat in her chair for a while...



She walked around in the sand some more...









She even decided that she liked wearing a hat and sunglasses.







After playing on the beach a while, we went in, ate lunch, and let Annistyn get a quick nap (after a good long bath, of course!) We had decided to take her to Gulf World to see the sea lions and dolphins.








We saw the bird show too.





She thought everything was pretty interesting...









(Note- I really had intended on drying my hair and not letting it dry itself into that big heap of wild curls, but we only had a few minutes to clean up from the beach after lunch, so... it made a good excuse to do the easy thing and let it go wild.)

Thursday night we drove about 8 miles back towards Destin and ate Italian at The Spicy Noodle, which had been recommended to us. Not the place we would have picked from the outside, but we LOVE a good "hole in the wall" restaurant, so we tried it. It was great! I had the baked ziti and it was enough to feed me dinner, and Michael and I lunch the next day. We ate there again today on the way home. We got a pizza and it was good too.

Friday we did things a little differently. We woke up early (8:30- HA!) and drove back to Sea Grove area to eat at Donut Hole- an ABSOLUTE favorite. Annistyn shared pancakes with me and ate a whole pancake- which are the size of about 3 regular pancakes. She loves breakfast like her Mommy!!! We did some shopping and made an afternoon beach trip.









Annistyn went even more "sand crazy" and started digging in it like a puppy dog!



We had covered her in 100 spf sunscreen, but put her sun shirt on her for extra coverage.



When we told her we had to pack up to go, she got really sad and lay down in the sand to tell it goodbye.



She ended up getting sand in her eyes, which was a crisis of its own.

I had to take a few "scrapbook background" pictures...
This one was an accident. I was trying to get Annistyn's footprints, but I got all of ours instead...



And this one is for the title page for our photo book...



I wanted a good sunset picture and we saw some beautiful ones! Of course, the only one I had my camera out for was a hazy one. It was still pretty though. Everything was pretty from the 21st floor!!!!



Friday night was a real treat. My Aunt Trish and Uncle Carl kept Annistyn while Michael and I went to Angelo's. It was nice to have a dinner together without fussing with Annistyn over sitting in her chair and telling her to stop singing so loudly or throwing food on the floor.

She was sweet for them (or so they say!!!) and we got a picture afterwards. This is a funny picture. One, I'm not wearing my shoes and two, Annistyn wanted to be included too!



This is where we stayed, by the way...





It was really nice and I would love to stay in the exact same condo again. It was a great location and price.

I miss the beach already and I really did not enjoy unpacking a week's worth of stuff and washing it. I washed beach towels and everything before we left, but all of Annistyn's outfits and things had to be washed.

One happy note about tonight...
She used the potty for the first time!!!!!!!!!!! I've been talking with her about it and working with her for a few weeks. I don't want to be pushy about it at all. The last few days she has been saying "tee-tee" and going to the potty and trying to climb on it. I'll put her up there and she just smiles and claps. Today she actually used it though! I was excited and we made a huge deal over it, so hopefully it will keep happening. I doubt I'll be going to go buy Pull-ups any time soon, but the good thing is that we are headed on that track and that is all I want. She won't use it if she doesn't know about it, so I don't think it's too early to start it. We've phased pappy time out until it's almost gone. She has been going to bed and laying down for a nap by herself for two weeks now.

Well, I guess I need to end the longest post ever.....
I'll probably take a few days off because it may take you that long to read this one... Ha!!! :)