Alabama Beach Vacay

Last Sunday we attended church for the early service then we came home and quickly changed, ate lunch, and packed up to head out of town! We were going to The Grand. This would be our 3rd trip there. The 2nd we took the kids on. They have been extremely excited about going to "The Beach". The last 2 summers we have chosen not to take big summer vacations, but instead opted for this. I hope next summer we can get back on taking a large venture though! Anyway so we headed out to my parents house and we all left together. Traffic was awful so it seemed like it took us FOREVER to get out of Mississippi. We drove on though and didn't stop until the Alabama rest stop. It was nice at that point to just get out the car and stretch a bit. We drove on and arrived at the hotel around 4:30. Well naturally we arrived in the midst of a monsoon. We had to wait a few minutes before unloading. Fortunately it slacked off enough we were able to park and get our things up to the room. We got settled in then decided to go ahead and eat dinner. We had originally planned to let the kids play at the pool and eat a casual pool side dinner but between the rain and also they had changed things up a bit at the hotel we weren't able to do that. Anyway we ate at the little restaurant. The food was pretty good and it was nice to visit with my parents. After dinner the kids wanted to put on their swimsuits so we brought them back to the room so they could do that. At that point the pool was still closed, but they wanted to spend time on the beach. Again it was drizzling rain the entire time, but they still had fun. We spent about an hour just letting them play in the sand and water. We walked around also a little after that and played some of the yard games...in the rain still. That night we got everyone cleaned up and they stayed awake and watched a movie. I knew they weren't going to go to sleep early.  I think we all turned the lights off by 10 and were shortly out though! 
Monday we got up fairly early b/c we knew we wanted to hit the pool before the rains came. We just had a little breakfast of cereal and such in the room. We got down to the pool right when it opened. We got our seats and at first thought it was going to be really nice for awhile. It was overcast and breezy. Well shortly after we got settled though the rains came...and they did not stop. We stuck it out though for the sake of the kids! We literally sat in the rain for about 2 hours!! I was freezing and soaked, but the kids continued to have a nice time. As the rain slacked off we decided to take them out to the beach. We enjoyed about 30 min out there. We then went back to the pool so they could do the slide. By about 11:30 I was DONE! I was freezing, cold, and hungry. We debated back and forth about what to do for lunch. We knew eating by the pool was out. We finally made the decision to ride into Fairhope to find some place to eat. We ended up at a Firehouse Subs. It was nice to get away for a bit and dry off. Ofcourse by the time we finished eating the sun was out and the rain had cleared!! We quickly got back to the hotel and changed into swimsuits. We hit the pool for about 2 hours! It was super hot though with the sun out. I did enjoy laying out though. We got drinks and it was just relaxing. I finally got super hot though and got in the pool. I left to go back to the room though about 2:30. Austin kept the kids out there a little while longer. I wanted to go ahead and shower. We were able to relax in the room for a couple hours before heading out to dinner. We went to get seafood that night. It was nice being with my parents and just all getting to visit together. It was raining again by that evening so once we got back to the hotel my parents headed up to their room. We spent a little time walking around with the kids. We turned in a little earlier that night b/c I think everyone was pretty tired from a busy day! 
Tuesday we got up early to head home. We left the hotel and went to Chickfila for breakfast. We then came straight on home. We made it home by lunch. We got in and unpacked and I even ventured to the grocery store. We had thought about going to see fireworks that night with friends, but pretty much everyone backed out. We also were a little relieved b/c we were tired from the whole trip. It was nice to just spend the evening at home.