Destin, FL 2012 – Part III

On Friday, the guys decided to book an early morning bay fishing trip.  They wanted to do a some sort of fishing while we were there.  However, even the bay was extremely choppy and not good for fishing so their trip was cut short.  The rest of us did a little shopping that day.  We all met up in the afternoon at a big amusement park area – it had bumper boats, race cars, putt-putt and few kiddie rides.  We had a great afternoon just hanging out there.  The weather was yucky so the beach wasn’t really an option.  This gave us a good alternative!

My Mallory ready to go shopping but not wanting to pose for a picture:

A picture the guys took of someone else’s fish.  Unfortunately not our trip for “good fishing”.

Dayton chose “Cheeseburger and a paradise” for lunch.  It was a pretty good and fun lunch spot!

On the carousel:

 

Dayton was not thrilled to ride this “baby” ride…

Bumper boats for Daddy and Dayton:

Putt-Putt for everyone.  Mallory isn’t a good sport.  Unfortunately she takes after Mommy in this department.  If she’s not good at it, she wants nothing to do with it so she was a little whiney during this event:

MeMe was our gallery and helped with Mallory: 

DeDe and Mallory looking at fish:

An airplane ride:

 

Race cars:

That night we chose to eat at The Shed – a bbq joint right near by.  Now grant it, it’s no Mikeska’s Alicia, but it was rather good for Florida bbq.  It was a laid back atmosphere and it was great, relaxing time!

I don’t have any good pics from the remainder of our trip.  We left Saturday morning for Coushatta.  It rained and poured and was horrible weather the entire trip there.  We were in the car from 9:15 Saturday morning til 6:15 Saturday night.  It was a miserable day – not gonna lie.  We should’ve been there by 3 or 4.  Although it seemed like all of our luck was bad that day, we found out about an hour after we’d been through Mobile, AL that the dam busted and the entire city was flooded.  That could’ve been us.  Pensacola got 21 inches of rain that day.  We could’ve been stuck in it.  We were fortunate to reach our destination safely, no matter how long it took and we were fortunate to have extremely patient kiddos along for the ride bc this momma wasn’t so patient herself!  We arrived back in El Campo on Sunday evening.  Can’t wait to go back!

Destin, FL 2012 – Part II

On Thursday, we had a full day of good weather (and by good I mean sunny – water was extremely rough still) so we did the beach, the beach and more beach all day long!  The weather was not the greatest while we were there – tides were high and the water was rough.  Five boats capsized on Thursday – this was the day Brandon, my dad and Wayne were supposed to go offshore fishing – thank goodness their trip was cancelled!  We spent the morning at a public beach and the afternoon at our hotel’s private beach.

Enjoying morning coffee on the balcony with Grandpa:

Beach fun #1:

After we’d had enough of getting beat up on that beach by the waves, we went to hop on our water taxi at our hotel to get to our little private, calm beach in the bay:

Check out Brandon and Dayton in the background ;)

After beach time all day, we headed to the pool for a bit.  Brandon, Samantha and I attempted to go parasailing but the weather was too bad so they wouldn’t let us up and put us on stand by.  We didn’t have enough time to wait because of our evening’s plans, so we passed!  Maybe next year ;)

Thursday nights on the harbor are Red, White and Blue nights where they honor the military all summer long and do a beautiful fireworks show.  We chose to take a dolphin/fireworks cruise that evening so that we could kill two birds with one stone – see dolphins and fireworks.  Didn’t see as many dolphins as last year (again, bc of the weather) but we had a front row view of the fireworks!

Waiting to get on the cruise boat with Grandpa and MeMe:

This is our hotel from the water.  Our room was the highest balcony on the left side.  I’m sure it is a fabulous place to see the fireworks from but we didn’t realize that til we were stuck on a boat in the water.  That’s okay – the kids loved it:

 

Samantha and I loved watching this sweet couple on their very own catamaran (or whatever) having adult beverages and falling more and more in love.  Must be nice…

Driving the boat with our Captain – Chalice.  That’s right boys and girls – our captain’s name was Chalice.  She was a riot…

Hotel and harbor at night:

I hate fireworks pictures bc they never do them justice.  Here a few Brandon took:

This is the barge that they launched the fireworks from so when I say front row seats- I mean it!  It was a little frightening!

After the cruise, we made a quick stop at the light up booth so Dayton could get a double ended light saber and Mallory could get a light up crown and pacifier – hilarious!  Then we ate at Crab Island Cantina – a perfect combination of seafood and mexican food.  Life doesn’t get much better than that – those are my FAVS!  It was delicious!