Beach Trip

On Thursday, our party of 8 set out for Gulf Shores.  Mills and I, along with Gram, Aunt Morgan, Aunt "Kimmie", Ms. Leslie, Ms. Camille and Ava were ready for sand, sun, new "family" beach pictures, and a lot of sand castle building.  Who knew? Right?  This post will be very short of  pictures, because the rain never let up and the wind was treacherous!  So, no beautiful beach pics like I was able to take last year.

We arrived Thursday night around 8:30ish.  Getting out of the car, I noticed that the wind was awfully strong.  I had never seen wind and waves like I did on Thursday, and by morning it was like a monsoon.  Aunt Kimmie checked the weather and there it was, "Tropical Storm."  Needless to say, it rained without stopping and the wind was like nothing I had ever seen.  If THAT was a tropical storm, I would hate to see what a true hurricane is like.  Lee, you stink!

 

We kept checking the weather and there was no sign of any break.  In fact, it was too bad to even get out of the condo to do anything. 

We went to the indoor pool on Friday and had a lot of fun swimming and soaking in the hot tub, then returned to the condo for dinner.

Mills and Ava Cate coloring

Mills found AC's Buzz and Woody

The two sweeties working a puzzle.  AC said, "Mills is my fwiend!"

On Saturday afternoon, a few of us decided to head out to the outlet mall, until we reached our lobby and decided that it was too dangerous to travel.  In Ft. Morgan, there is water on the North side of the highway, and I could just see me getting to the end of the drive, pulling out and getting blown across in to Mobile Bay.   We stood and watched as newspaper stands etc. were blown over.  The wind was treacherous and the rain was very heavy.  We almost gave up on it, but after an hour or so, it let up a little bit.  So, we braved it and headed out.  We had a great afternoon of shopping and finished the night with dinner at the Original Oyster House.  It never stopped raining, so we looked like drenched rats. ha!

Sunday, mid morning, the sun finally reared its head.  We made a mad-dash to the beach with all of the other vacationers.  The wind had let up...a little bit, but was still very strong.  The atmosphere was full of salty condensation, that covered our sunglasses.  I was unable to get any good pictures, because it covered my camera lens as well.  Bummer! We attempted to build a few sand castles, and Mills had a blast chasing seagulls up the beach.  He kept screaming, "Buddie! Buddie!" (birdie) 

The beach enjoyment lasted about 3 hours.  Then we headed back toward the pool area just before the storm reared its ugly head again.  We had a lot of trouble carrying all of our things back up.  Mills was wearing a monkey harness, which he loved, so that I could keep him within reach, and by the time we got up the hill, the wind was terrible.  I turned around only to see him at a complete stand still.  The wind was keeping him from walking any further and for a minute I thought my feet had left the ground. ha!  When I turned around to grab him, the wind blew him down.  He thought it was funny and I couldn't help but laugh.  Now I know how Dorothy felt as she was trying to get home before the nasty tornado took her to Oz.  It was crazy. Mills' cheeks were even getting blown sideways.  Later on, we all realized that we were all burnt to a crisp, even after applying sunblock.  It must have been the wind and over cast mixed with the sun and salty air.  Thank goodness the little ones dodged a sunburn.  Mills has a nice little tan.  Mommy's back is as red as a tomato.  Thank you aloe vera.  Here are my "salty lens" pictures.

We ended the day with a trip to LuLu's for T-shirts, then headed out for Pizza, which was DELISH!

Heading out early Monday morning, the rain was VERY heavy when we reached Mobile.  The National Weather Service kept interrupting the radio with watches and warnings, but we made it home in record time avoiding any trouble.  It rained all the way to just north of Tupelo.  As we reached Tennessee, the sunny skies greeted us home.