Vacation 2011 - Part 1

I am finally getting around to posting our pictures from our family vacation. I've been in such a blogging slump for the last week. Not alot is going on in my life and sometimes I feel like I blog about the same things over and over and over. And for the few readers I have I feel like that gets a little boring.

Anyway, on to our vaca! This year Clay and I decided we wanted to go back to Gulf Shores and stay in the same condo as last year. We love Gulf Shores and have gotten to know our way around pretty well. Plus there are several restaurants that we love eating at :)

I have to warn y'all there are a tone of pictures. If you don't make it through the entire post I completely understand. Ha!

We left our house on Saturday morning and got down to the beach around 4pm. The traffic on Gulf Shores Parkway was a little more crowded than what I remember from last year.

When we got to our condo Bryson went straight to the glass doors wanting to look outside. It was so much different with him this year. Last year he couldn't even walk.


He loved being on the balcony. Me, not so much. I was so terrified that he was going to fall. It was funny listening to him say "Wow momma! Wow!" That's one of his favorite sayings right now.

It turned out to be a little more crowded than we thought, so we ate in and then took our trip to Wal-Mart. We ended up having a a melt down in the middle of Wal-Mart and on top of that Bryson had a huge blowout and for the first time ever I did not bring his bag with the diapers. Needless to say I will never do that again.


Our first day at the beach was pretty good. Bryson did really well. He wasn't wild about the sand, but I ended up buying a blanket to lay out and from then on he was pretty content. I was so proud of him for getting his feet wet! This was something we were not able to do last year.


I was getting some really good pictures of him standing by himself, but my camera started fogging up and this is the best one that came out.


We didn't spend alot of time on the beach that day. So we went to the next best place, the pool! Bryson had the best time. I found myself being that mom that would say "Bryson, don't run." "Bryson, don't touch that. It doesn't belong to you." I think I was getting on Clay's nerves. Ha! I just don't want to be that momma that has the unruly child that everyone talks about.


We had dinner at one of my favorite places, LuLu's. I normally order their crabmelt, but ever since Mary and I took a day trip down this past May, I am addicted to the Blackened Fish sandwich with fried green tomatoes and LuLu's Wow sauce. Yummy is all I can say!!


Our family of three!


Me and my little man!


Me and my big man! I think this is one of my favorite pictures of Clay and I.


This was our view off our balcony. I was disappointed that the lounge chairs on the balcony were not that comfortable.


I just love this picture and had to put it in here. I can't believe how much he is growing and becoming such a big boy.


We pulled out all the stops on our second day at the beach. The blanket and DVD were lifesavers.


You really can't tell from this picture, but we were kinda' far out. Clay was getting so mad at me. He kept saying, "Jennifer, that's too far you need to come back!" But Bryson was loving it and we were having so much fun.


Of course we only last about an hour at the beach and then it was time to go to the pool. I'm sure in this picture I was telling Bryson not to run.


That night we had dinner at another one of our favorite places, Bahama Bob's! They have the best crawfish po-boy I've ever had. Can y'all tell in this picture that Clay was thrilled to be getting his picture made? Ha!


My two boys! I could just eat them up :)


This was Bryson in the middle of watching Cars. He has what some would call a bit of an obsession with this movie. I think we watched this movie close to 100 times while we were on vacation. And I'll admit, it's one of my favorites. If I think about it I'll try and get him on video saying all the names of the cars. He is such a ham when he says their names.


Bryson got very attached to my iPhone during this trip. I can't wait for y'all to see the one picture of him with the headphones in. So cute!


We ate breakfast at Tacky Jack's on Wednesday morning. This is where I discovered that my son loves orange juice. I've offered it to him before and he took a sip and immediately scrunched his face and told me "All done momma!" Ever since we've been back home he's asked for it every morning. Just goes to show this momma that taste buds can change at any given moment.


I know I've got way to many food/restaurant pictures. But who doesn't go on vacation to eat? I mean that's why I go. Ha!! These are fried pickles from Bubba's House of Seafood. I think this is probably Clay's favorite places. He ordered their fried shrimp this time and said it was the best he's ever had. I got the stuffed crab like I do every time I go. I'm not very good at branching out.


I knew this year would we wouldn't be able to get a picture of all of us out on the beach, so I settled for one on the balcony. We are going through the terrible two's and meltdowns could happen at any given time of the day. Plus Bryson isn't keen on getting his picture taken these days.

We took a lot of trips down to the pool in the evenings. It definitely wore Bryson out and let him get out some of that extra energy. And there were not as many people there around that time. So there were a few times he had the pool all to himself.