Journey: Family Vacation 2013

He loves his books!

For the past few years my parents have taken my sister's family and us on a family vacation. We've had amazing trips to Walt Disney World, Hawaii, Family Camp in Colorado, Branson, and Washington D.C. We've also been on a cruise. This year was supposed to be a cruise year but with our recent addition we decided to stick to something a little closer to home.

A stop at the Florida visitors center.

Last year Steve and I traveled through Florida after our family trip to Branson. We enjoyed visiting many parts of the state including Destin. When we found out that we were being blessed with David we suggested that going to Destin might be a fun alternative to the cruise. My parents got busy looking for a place for the 10 of us to stay. With help from my friend, whose family visits the area every summer, they found a great house in a great location. Blue Mountain Beach, Florida is east of Destin and between Grayton Beach and Santa Rosa Beach. It has the sugary white sand of the Florida panhandle and the emerald water of the "Emerald Coast". It was a beautiful setting for our family vacation and David's first birthday in our family!!

A stop at Cracker Barrel

We decided it would be best to break the drive into 2 days for David's sake. I got some ideas on how to keep him occupied and had a basket of ideas. He did GREAT!! Though the trip was long he found the activities enjoyable and we didn't even use the dvd player on the way there.

My parents rented a fabulous house and we all really enjoyed it. There was a lot of room for all of us and we really enjoyed the pool. David loved having everyone under the same roof! He really enjoyed some great cousin time and family dinners each night!

Each day (except one rainy one) we headed down to the beach during the morning. David was a bit unsure of the sand and salty water the first day. It took him a little while to like playing in the sand but by the end of the week he was loving it.

Precious baby!!

Our house for the week- loved all the porches!!

The backyard- we spent a lot of time at the pool!

Having fun with family!



Blue Mountain Beach

David's first time in the ocean!

We did professional pictures our first evening.
We hope they turn out great. The setting was awesome at Grayton State Park.

David is starting to like ice cream.
We loved the creamery that was right down the street!