A Little 5 on Friday Fun

Yay for Friday! It feels good to almost have this first full week back from vacation behind me. :-)

I'm happy to be linking up with 5 on Friday again this week! I thought I'd share 5 really cool places that we visited while on our Gulf Shores Family Vacation last week! (I'll be sharing these activities in more detail in my days 3-8 posts coming up next week.)

First and foremost was the Dolphin Cruise we took Monday night. Dolphins are by far my favorite animal. I swam with dolphins back in 2000 and it was such an awesome experience. This cruise was great because we were guaranteed to see dolphins and it did not disappoint.

Second was Zip-lining! Jake and I Zip-lined on Wed. morning while my parents hung out with Jackson at the condo/pool. We zip-lined at Gulf State Park and it was amazing. There were 7 lines that we zipped down. It was cool because once you were on the first tower, you zipped straight from tower to tower until we were finished. The last line was a double line, so Jake and I got to race. Unfortunately he won. Ha.

Third is Alligator Alley. Alligator Alley is a huge Alligator Farm where they have over 200 rescued alligators that live in a natural environment. Lots and lots of swampy areas for them to live happily. It was really cool to see. Jackson got to hold a baby alligator. He was not afraid at all. :-) The second picture is of "Captain Crunch" their largest gator.

Fourth was visiting the USS Alabama in Mobile, AL. It was very fascinating to see the huge battleship up close and personal.

Fifth was touring Fort Morgan. Jake loves learning about the Civil War, so this was right up his alley. It was super hot that day and a lot of it was outside, so we didn't spend as much time there as we would have liked, but it was very interesting.

I'm also linking up here: 

Day 2 of our Gulf Shores, Alabama Family Vacation

I'm going to skip "Throwback Thursday" this week and continue on with Day 2 of our Gulf Shores vacation. We'll pick up on #tbt next week! :-)

If you missed Day 1, you can catch up here.

Day 2 of our trip, we woke up and headed out to Wal-Mart to get some groceries and necessities for the week. But before heading out, I got a few pictures of the condo.

The condo was perfect. The perfect size and it was in the perfect location.

Wal-Mart was jammed!! It was not a fun trip and it lasted WAY TOO LONG! Jackson usually does pretty well at the store, but it was just taking way too long, so I ended up getting him down and letting him run around for a little while. I took him back to the toy section to play with some toys while we waited. I snapped this picture while we were back there. :-)

Once we got back to the condo and had lunch, we put Jackson down for a nap and just relaxed a little.

Once Jackson got up from his nap, we headed down to the beach.

This is a picture from our condo balcony. The beach was just a short walk, which was wonderful!

Jackson wasn't overly impressed with the beach. He enjoyed playing in the sand a little bit, but didn't love the ocean. There were times when we'd ask him if he wanted to go to the beach and he'd say "nah". LOL.

My Dad and Jake in the water!

After spending some time at the beach, we decided to go spend some time in the pool before dinner.

Jackson LOVED the pool!!!

While we were at the pool, I snapped this picture so you could see our condo from the outside. Ours was the one in the lower right hand side with the lime green chairs. :-)

As you can see from the picture above, it was starting to get dark and a storm was blowing in. So we headed back up to the condo to fix dinner. We also watched the storm roll in from the balcony. It was a pretty wicked storm with lots of lightening and some VERY loud thunder!

Thankfully the storm didn't last long and we had a great rest of the evening and a great first full day of vacation (minus the trip to Wal-mart).

Linking up here:

Day 1 of our Gulf Shores, Alabama Family Vacation

Our trip to Gulf Shores started bright and early Saturday morning, August 3rd. We got up and got on the road at around 7:30 a.m. My parent's met us at our house to get the car packed up the night before, so all we had to do that morning was shower and pack a few more essentials. As you can see, our trunk was very full! We also had 2 sets of golf clubs tied onto the roof rack of our Equinox. ( I should have probably taken a picture of that too, but didn't.)

Once all packed, we were on our way. It was about a 12 hour drive through the states of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and then Alabama.

It rained a majority of the morning. We planned to stop in Memphis for lunch. I had never been to Memphis, so it was fun to at least stop and see it, even if it was only for a very short time. We first drove by Beale Street, to get a glimpse of it...

and then we stopped off at the Memphis City Visitor's Center for a potty break and to stretch our legs.

We let Jackson run out some energy inside...

... and outside. He had so much fun splashing in the rain puddles.

He also enjoyed checking out the Hernando de Soto Bridge.

While we were there, we got a few family pictures with the bridge and then headed out of town a little ways to find somewhere to stop for lunch.

Once out of Memphis a little ways, we stopped at Memphis BBQ Company for lunch. It was right across the state line into Mississippi. It was really good!

photo

After lunch, we drove and drove and drove, only making a few stops to go to the bathroom and stretch our legs. Jackson did fabulous in the car. He took a nap a little while after lunch and was pretty happy in the car considering the long drive. When he would start to get too crabby, we would stop and let him run around for a little while and that always helped him get in a much better mood.

We arrived at our condo/resort at around 9:15 that evening. We stopped by the little restaurant/grocery store on the resort and ordered a couple pizzas for dinner. We ate out on the patio and listened to the waves coming in on the beach. It was too dark to see the ocean at that point, but it was nice hearing it and smelling it in the air. After dinner, we headed up to the condo to check it out, get unpacked and settled in.


(I'll start Day Two's post with pictures of the condo. I waited til the next day to take any pictures because we were just so tired that first night.)


Linking up here:

Project Life 2013 - Week 31

My page for week 31!

For this layout, I used the I Was Here Full Kit Freebie from La Belle Vie

** Don't miss the chance to win a free 8x10 canvas by clicking here. Giveaway ends this evening. **

Monday Randoms

1. We are home from our wonderful vacation to Gulf Shores. We had a really great time and I'm so glad to have such wonderful memories of Jackson's first vacation! I will share all about our trip over the next few days and weeks. I took a ton of pictures and have a lot of editing and watermarking to do. :-)

2. My canvas giveaway will be over in just 1 more day. Don't forget to check it out and enter the giveaway for a free 8x10 canvas!

3. I can't believe kids are going back to school today already. It seems like summer just started and already they're going back to school. I feel like they go back earlier and earlier every year.

4. One of the biggest things I'm going to miss from vacation was going to the pool with Jackson every day! I had gotten him a Puddle Jumper before we left and it was perfect for him. I strongly recommend these to all toddler moms.  Once he got the hang of it, he was able to be in the pool and swim around without us having to hold him. It was great.

And thats all I have for today. :-)

Throw-back Thursday: My First Trip to the Beach

Welcome back to this weeks Throw-back Thursday Link-Up!

<a href="http://www.asmithstory.com/search/label/Throw-back%20Thursdays"><img src="http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd296/AmyRS81/Throw-backThursdaysLink-UpButton_zpse60f6ee6.jpg" alt="button" width="250" height="250" /></a>   Since we're at the beach this week and it's Jackson's first trip to the beach, I thought I would share a couple pictures of my first trip to the beach in 1991! My BFF Carley, and her mom took me along on their Florida Vacation that year. We went to visit her Aunt and Uncle in Melbourne, FL and we went to Cocoa Beach! It was so much fun! We also spent a few days at Disney World that trip as well.   My first trip to the beach!

 

Now it's your turn! Do you have any old beach pictures, or any pictures from your past that you'd like to share? I'd love for you to link up with me and add the button above to your #tbt post!