This summer we are blessed with not one, but two family vacations. One to start and one to end the summer. So we started off the summer with a bang in Destin! A 12+ hour car ride with 2 littles (3 years and 2 months) was not my idea of fun, but we took our time since the rest of our party had already left before us, and tried to maintain a positive attitude. On the way there, Arwyn was the good kid and slept plenty, only fussed occasionally and took expressed breastmilk bottles like a champ. Avie, on the other hand, threw up (only once, thanks to Dramamine) and had melt downs several times. But on the way back they reversed rolls.
I could go on and on about all the preparations I made to make it a smooth trip, but I’ll stick to the ones that mattered. Avie couldn’t have cared less about the games and toys I packed for her. She only cared about the movies, which didn’t even hold her attention for the first half of each. Pumping in the car saved our trip because we didn’t have to stop every 2 hours for little pants to eat. The audio book I checked out from the library kept Ansen and I entertained and helped the trip go much quicker… despite pausing it every few minutes to attend to someone’s needs.
The point is: We made it.
This was our condo, the Emerald Grande, that we shared with Ansen’s family. It was a 3 bedroom, 3 bath and fit everyone pretty nicely (though not ideally). The common area was plenty big enough and the kitchen and dining room (which didn’t get used as much as we had planned) were spacious.
And this was the view from the balcony of the bay and the gulf beyond.
While the hotel wasn’t right on the beach, it was kind of fun to take the beach shuttle each time. Avie loved the boat.
The beach they drop you at is on the bay side, so it’s much calmer and very easy for little people to play in.
The hotel provides giant umbrellas and beach chairs and even sets them up for you if they aren’t to your liking. Which meant that they happily placed this umbrella down by the water so I could sit with Arwyn and watch Avie play. Uncle Andrew made a “poo” (pool) as Avie calls it and even buried himself. Avie didn’t care about building sandcastles, so much as smashing them down.
On the fourth day there, we rented a pontoon boat and went to CrabIsland, a large sand bar that is just a few feet underwater. Avie loved the “bouncy boat”, but the “other beach that got water in my mouth”. Anyone under a certain age had to wear a life vest while the boat was moving. So of course, Avie did. And when she got in the water, she promptly flipped over and got a mouth full of sea water. I don’t think she had been in the water far enough before then to do that. Arwyn also “had” to wear a life vest. We did for a while and then she got fed up, so I took her out and didn’t bother with it anymore. Honestly, if she had fallen overboard the life vest probably wouldn’t have done much and we’d be in much bigger trouble.
One evening, Mimi and Papa watched the girls and let us have a date night! It was seriously some of the best food we had (and we had a lot of fresh seafood). Ansen had the sea scallops, which we knew would be good. And I had the grilled swordfish. I didn’t know swordfish could be so… delicate. And our desserts were equally as good:
Since everyone got to do something they wanted to do, we even let Avie ride the little train. And we lucked out. The gal running it had to take a break right when we got there, so she gave us one free ticket, so we didn’t even have to pay full price.
The last day we went to the beach again and then walked over (about 1/4 mile) to the gulf side and played in the big waves. Avie wasn’t too sure about them. She and I picked seashells instead. All in all, it was a fantastic trip, despite the car ride… and we can’t wait to go again at the end of the summer!
