Beach Vacay 2016--All good things must come to an end!

So for the past few days, I've been setting down, for posterity's sake, our family vacation to the Panhandle of Florida.  We're pretty much beach bums the whole.entire.time. we're down there #noshame.

I mean, really, can you blame us?!?!  If we weren't doing the whole reading-kite flying-football tossing-hunting for critters thing then we were most likely doing one of the following:

or maybe this:

We ate some delish food and celebrated J's birthday,

and a vast number of sand structures were created.

We took time to snuggle

and take in the view. again.

Finally, we managed to clean ourselves up and attempted the famous "beach-at-sunset-family-photograph".  We started off okay,

 but then the camera started fogging up and in the end, we had to call it quits.

The next night was much better, even though it was starting to sprinkle.  Thankfully everyone was very cooperative and we were able to get done in 10 minutes and only got mildly soaked as we walked home.  Ha!

It was such a relaxing time and filled with so many sweet memories!  What a blessing that I get to call these 3 my own!

Beach Vacay 2016 part 2

After driving a total of 16 hours we were READY to be at the beach!  A quick stop at the condo to wash hands and put luggage inside and then it was off to get some dinner.  We like to go to the same place because it is suuuuper casual and it gets us right into that beach, vacation vibe--seafood, sweet tea, sand and ocean breezes.

After dinner and running to the grocery for provisions for the week it was time to get home and collapse into bed!  Since we're naturally early risers, we're usually up and on the beach before 9.  The hardest decision of the week?  Which book was I going to read first?!

 And this is how we vacation:

 No real set plans, just set up the tent and start enjoying the sun and surf!  We go home for lunch and stay back at the condo for an hour or two for some quiet time and then it is back down until dinner.  It is a tough life, but someone's got to do it, right?!

There was some catching of the football,

kite flying,

and watching the local wildlife.

 It wouldn't be vacation without LOTS of this:

One of the things MeiMei said that she wanted to do on the beach was read Junie B. Jones, which she happens to be really into right now.  The girls loved sitting under the tent, happily digging away and listening to all of Junie B's antics!

Really, just gazing out at this

and being here with my 3 favorite people was all this side of perfection!

Tomorrow we'll wrap up this photo dump--if you've followed along this far, congrats and thanks!