destin vacation {our quiet little beach spots}

Other than seeing the dolphins, the dolphin cruise was wonderful for being able to see the area from a different perspective.

We kept our eye out for a new beach spot. 

Dave spotted this one.

 I wasn't sure at first.  It was kind of weird to be underneath a bridge.  The main bridge that you come in on to get into Destin.  But it ended up being perfect, maybe our favorite.  It was calm so the kids could be in the water all by themselves, lots of ocean critters, and shade.  Shade's not something you usually get at the beach, but it was definitely a nice break in the middle of our sun-soaked week.  

We walked up and down the shore and saw lots of fish (that Mason desperately tried to catch), tons of hermit crabs, little sand crabs and a bigger crab that was a little more scary than the others.

We caught lots of hermit crabs and had planned to get a cage and take a few home with us.

Unfortunately, back at the condo, the kids filled the bucket with fresh water (we were not aware of this) and the next morning the crabs were all dead.  Kinda sad.

Another day, it was back to the waves!  Dave loves the waves and bought himself a boogie board that the kids pretty much took over.

 It was harder to get Mason on out in the water, so Dave had to be a little more creative.

 It's obvious by the pictures, but it just took a day or 2 and Mason really got comfortable with the water and waves.

Taylor continued to be brave.  Wanting her daddy to take her out as far as they possibly could go.

 We loved that we could skip naps and the kids were still fine.  It made our days so enjoyable and so flexible.  We would stay at the beach till early evening, and it just got more and more beautiful and enjoyable as the day went on.

 We got the umbrella from a friend (thanks Erica!), she doesn't want it back.  So if anyone plans a beach vacation we can keep passing the "community umbrella".  It was so nice to have.  Saved us $40 a day had we rented a little umbrella/chair thingy.

I loved the hours we spent on the beach. I loved the experience our kiddos got to have.  I loved sitting and soaking it all in. There were a few times I really didn't want to pack up and leave. We always packed lunches, but I wish we would have packed dinner one night, so we didn't have to leave to eat.
I would have loved to just stay till sunset.

On another note, I put all our vacation pictures on a video to be able to show family, I'm a sucker for looking back at pictures put to songs.  No, I won't show you the video - it's 12 minutes long. But just in case you wanna sit back and pretend you're knee deep in the water somewhere, with your only worry being whether the tide's gonna reach your chair, then here's a song you can listen to while you dream.
We LOVE Zac Brown Band and this is one of Dave and I's favs right now!
The kids call it our "Florida" song.

and the total was....

Well, Dave had me guess.

 $50? $75 ( I obviously was way more off than most you guys)

No higher.

SERIOUSLY?

$80?

Nope. $121

Yep, that's right. $121 for that picture.

Congrats to Sarah for her $120 guess!
Guess you know your king crab.
If I was loaded, I'd buy you a king crab dinner - but I'll let you just settle for the picture.

 

Yes, they were FABULOUS!!! But a lot of work.

For $121, shouldn't someone crack them and feed them to you?
Wow.  What a night.  What a bill.

So guess what we did (well other than deciding that the next night we'd be eating sandwiches that we already had at the condo)? To make up for it we decided to sit through a time-share meeting. Thinking that a free Carabba's lunch and a $75 Visa Card would be worth it. It was absolutely 2 of the worst hours of my life. Okay, I MAY be exaggerating. But it was truly awful. 2 hours, sitting at a table that stared right at the beach, across the street. Our kids sat with us the whole time. It was HORRIFIC. They hated every second of it. My anxiety level at the end was off the charts. Not because of my kids - who can blame them? But because of the people.

After 30 minutes into it, and having done nothing other than small-talk with our guy (which was awkward by the way), Dave finally said "how long is this gonna take, our kids aren't gonna last." We were told a firm 2 hours. It took 2 1/4. We were tired of the useless chit-chat that seemed to take up the whole first hour, and Dave finally asked "when are you gonna get to the numbers?" along with plenty of other comments that made me OH, so uncomfortable. But we were stuck. There was no speeding this guy up or cutting straight to the chase. He was one week on the job and he stuck to procedure like glue. So annoying.

Half way through I wondered if the $75 was even worth it. I was about to say we were out of there, forget the free stuff. But we stayed. Said NO 50 billion times to 3 different people, and then got our VISA card in which we turned right around and filled up with gas. 

Putting our $170 dinner under $100.

Never thought I'd be relieved to have a $100 dinner tab for the 4 of us.

Lesson learned - always ask market price.
(do waiters ever just tell you the price without you asking??)
Well, unless your loaded or someone else is paying of course.

a seafood dinner to remember

If you've been keeping up with our vacation posts, you saw a picture of this dinner...

A lot can be said about this dinner.  For one, I am sure glad I got a picture of it.

It was a fabulous dinner - seriously, AMAZING!

So the first part of the story goes like this...

Dave's choice for dinner -3 lb. bucket of king crab legs - priced at market price
Normally we ask what market price is
This particular time he didn't. 

Partly because he thought he could estimate it based off of other prices, partly because we were on vacation and he didn't care.

He figured it would be his most expensive meal of the week. 

We love food, our vacations are planned around food! And good thing.

The bill came and he wouldn't even let me see it. But I could tell by the look on his face, it was NOT good.

It took him a few minutes to recover and he kept me waiting in suspense in the meantime.

I was dying.

So before I give it away, let's see how good you are...you guess the price.
3 lb. bucket of king crab legs with corn and red potatoes.  How much do you think the cost was?

If you already know - you can't guess! 

 I'll give you the rest of the story on Wednesday.

destin vacation {our non-beach activities}

We definitely spent the majority of our time on the beach. But Destin has so many other fun things to do and see also. So we wanted to get some of that in.

A village called Baytowne Wharf was on the grounds of our resort. It was such a quaint little area with tons of restaurants, boutique shops, candy and ice cream shops, a carousel, playground, ropes course, and lots of other stuff.

When we first arrived, we spotted a wedding in the courtyard. Dave was not interested at all, but Taylor and I wanted so badly to stop and watch some. I promised him we'd only stop long enough to see the bride walk out. (excuse the distracting people that are in the way)

The reception was set up in the most beautiful outdoor area with live music - I could only imagine what the price tag was.

We choose a restaurant on the water again. And while we waited to be seated, we strolled along the dock.

For weeks before our trip, all Dave could talk about was the seafood he couldn't wait to eat. He was determined he'd be eating some sort of seafood every single night.  Taylor had no idea what we were really talking about when we said "seafood".  When we explained, she was determined she would be eating NONE of it.  But we got her to try crab legs, lobster, and several other kinds of fish (she already likes shrimp)  At the time she said she liked them. But she denies it now. 

There is a story to this dinner, and I'm thinking it may be worthy of a post all of it's own.

Another neat area was Harborwalk Village.  It's right on the water and it's where all the boating stuff comes in and out - as far as parasailing, chartered boats, sunset tours, snorkeling tours, dolphin cruises.  One fishing boat had just come in with this catch.

I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture, but the nails are going through the eyes of the fish to hang there.

Chartering a fishing boat is one thing that Dave wants to do so badly!  He wanted to on our honeymoon in Cabo - but SO expensive.  And he wanted to again this time - but same problem.  I think he needs a few friends to do this with him.  Not 2 kids and a wife who may throw up over the side.  Someday.

We took a dolphin cruise, that started out being a seagull cruise.  We got to feed the birds popcorn.  You could throw the popcorn in the water and the birds would swoop down to get it, you could throw it in the air, and sometimes they'd catch it, or you could just hold it in your hand and they'd come and take it right out of your hands.

The kids all had a chance to drive the boat, Mason chose not to.

We LOVED seeing the dolphins! 

We had several recommendations for Fudpuckers, a restaurant that also has what is called Gator Beach.

You could pay $10 to hold an alligator and get your picture taken.  We chose to just stick with the fake ones.

Our one morning to eat breakfast out we ate at the restaurant at our resort where we could sit outside poolside.  It was wonderful. 

But of course I have more beach pictures from the other fun beach spots we found.

Stay tuned, and I'll try to be quicker with the next posts.  This week got away from me.

But don't they all.

destin vacation {first day on the beach}

We had to get to the beach as soon as we could the first day. This is all our kids talked about the entire ride to Florida - "when will we see the beach?". Our resort had a private beach - but the Sandestin resort is huge. So the beach was packed. But it was such a fun first experience at the beach.

Taylor didn't hesitate one bit.  She was ready for the water and the waves.  She didn't like the salt, but it didn't stop her the entire time, she quickly learned to keep her mouth closed.

 

Mason was much more hesitant.  He didn't really like the sand too much. It bothered him that he was covered in it, he didn't like the waves at all, and didn't really want anything to do with the water. And when his swim suit got wet, he wanted to put dry clothes on.  Oh boy buddy, this is going to be a long week if you don't get used to this.  So he stayed back with mommy for most of this first day.  He slowly got more used to the sand. 

He preferred the pool over the beach.  The pool didn't have waves.  It was perfect that there was a pool right by the beach.

After dinner on the beach, we ventured back to the water. We didn't go with the intentions of letting the kids get soaked, but it didn't take long till we just decided it was okay (knowing there wasn't too much we could do about it).

 It was pure joy just sitting there watching them take it all in.

After not loving the beach earlier that day, Mason quickly warmed up to it.  He ventured further out, the waves didn't bother him so much, and no more complaints about the sand.  That's our little guy for ya.  He has to have time to get used to something.  Taylor has NEVER needed time to get used to anything. 

And then back for baths.  I bet you can imagine how well the kids slept every night!