The Beach!

Ben went on a beach trip just before his first birthday.  It has been 7 years since our family has been to the beach.  We decided to drive and experience a road trip as well.  It was an adventure!  The kids did mostly really well on the car rides.  We took two days to drive there and two days home as well.  We went to Seagrove, Florida in the Destin area.  It was about 14 hours one way.  Both kids took to the sand and ocean really quickly.  Ben was determined to surf and go as deep as we would let him in the ocean.  Elizabeth also liked the water, but mostly stayed a little more shallow and especially loved hunting for shells.

We drove to Destin a couple of times.  We went to a boardwalk area for a parade and shopping and another day we went on a dolphin boat cruise.

 

One of the things that the kids were determined to do was to catch a fish.  They tried with buckets for a while and then we bought nets.  They were still very difficult to catch.  Those little dudes were fast!  Mom was the only one to catch one.  We kept it in a bucket and the kids added sand and seaweed to make it feel at home.  We let it go after a while so it could get back to its family.

After all of the beach and ocean play we worked up big appetites each day!  We enjoyed eating at our condo some and dining out at new places.  We even found a homemade popsicle place that we went to two days in a row it was so good!  We would have gone more, but we didn't try it until the last couple of days of our trip.

It was a great trip and the kids are now official beach bums.  They look forward to going back some day to enjoy the surf again.