Gulf Shores

We went on a little vacation this past weekend and had a really nice time.  My parents got a condo right on the beach in Orange Beach, Alabama.  I will say during the time we were there, I think we saw the sun twice and it rained on our last day.  Even with that, we still managed to play on the beach, go swimming, and have fun!  We took Gavin out to the beach on our first morning to see how he would like it.  He's been in sand before, but sometimes he has different opinions on things.  Within the first 2 minutes of walking on the beach, he tried very hard to get the sand our of his shoes.  It was cute to watch him.  Eventually, he got use to it and didn't mind it at all.  

We went to lunch at a place called Lulu's.  The restaurant was started by Jimmy Buffet's sister, Lulu.  It was a cute place outdoors that had a large play area for kids.  My mom brought Gavin to the sand area and he played his little heart out.  He laughed a lot and threw sand everywhere.

Brooks, Gavin, and I spent time on the beach and they played in the water.  I will admit the wind was blowing really hard and it was very cloudy, which made the water a little cold, but it didn't matter to them!  Gavin would hold Brooks hand and walk out into the water.  They would pretend the waves were chasing them and run away.  Gavin laughed a lot!  He would go out into the water if Brooks was holding him and he let a few waves crash into them!  It was a precious sight to watch!

Did I mention that Gavin enjoyed playing in the sand??  He LOVED it.  He had shovels and a pail and he would scoop up the sand and play and play and play.  After a while, he'd hand me his hand to clean it off.  On this day, we noticed Gavin's mouth was turning a little blue from the "cold" so we decided to go swimming in the indoor pool.  Gavin loved being in the pool and it was amazing to see how much of our swim lessons from last summer he remembered.  He'd jump off the side of the pool, he'd go under water, and he would kick his feet when we put him on his stomach to swim to one of us.  My mom had a great idea and bought some water guns so Gavin got to play with those.  He thought it was hilarious to get mommy and daddy wet.  

So, the indoor pool area also had a hot tub.  I took this picture thinking it was pretty funny that the sign behind it said no kids under the age of 12 allowed.  Normally, we would have NEVER put Gavin in the hot tub, but after 15 minutes of being inside and swimming, his lips were still a light shade of blue.  Brooks dipped him in the hot tub water to help his body's temperature even out a little.  Gavin would get in and say, "ooohhhhh", "HOT".  Don't worry, we didn't let him stay in THAT long..

On our last day it rained pretty much all day.  We did manage to take Gavin outside on the tennis courts and let him throw balls.  Brooks found a frisbee in the bushes somewhere so Gavin got a kick out of throwing that all around.  We also brought a bat and ball and practiced hitting!  He was actually really good at holding the bat and got better at watching for the ball.  He ran around and laughed hysterically 90% of the time.  Then, we stayed inside and just hung out until the rain stopped. 

Our last night we went to dinner at a restaurant on the water and got some amazing seafood!  Overall, the trip was a huge success and a lot of fun.  Brooks enjoyed getting time off of work, I liked getting to just rest, and Gavin LOVED the beach!