Beach Vacation

Last month, we spent some time in Pensacola, Florida for one last little vacation before KR's school started up again. We stayed at the Navy Lodge on the Naval Base there for the first couple nights and planned to mostly just chill on the beach.

The Lodge was right on the bay and the water was warm and calm. We didn't have to share the beach with many other people either which was nice. Occasionally, a coast Guard helicopter would fly real low right over the shoreline doing drills.

KR took this picture (below) from the lodge balcony. You can see Bailey and I out on the beach between the trees.

The major downside was the wind! It was sooo windy on the shore. Sure it felt nice to have a breeze since it was so hot and humid, BUT, not when you have to stake down all your stuff and hold on to your beach umbrella the whole time to prevent it from uprooting and flying half way down the beach and having to chase after it-which happened. Also, not only was it hard enough trying to keep Bailey cool, but the sound of everything flapping in the wind was freaking her out. We either had to cover her ears or create a little tunnel for her to shield the wind.

All in all, I'm sure we were more stressed than she was. When you think of a beach vacation, you picture relaxing in the lap of luxury, swimming, getting a nice tan, etc (at least that's what those of us inexperienced, non-beach-savvy-with-a-new-baby folk imagine.) We did manage to have a good time, but it wasn't exactly ideal. We spent a long 2 hours out there and called it a day. And it's amazing how much sand we found on our baby who never even touched the sand!

Wouldn't all of us like to have this tree in our backyard?

Across the street from where we stayed was the National Naval Aviation Museum. This place was huge and had so much to see (much more than our Aviation Museum at Ft.Rucker). You could easily spend all day there. We only planned for a few hours so we pretty much did a brief walk through and caught an I-Max film about fighter pilots-way cool!

The base there is home to the Blue Angels (like the Thunderbirds for us Air Force brats) and although we never saw them flying, we would wake up to the sound of them practicing there in the mornings.

If you notice, at the beach KR was wearing his Air Force shirt and on this day he was wearing his Army shirt. He got a few stares and comments at the NAVY museum but he loved it! haha :)

And yes we pulled Bailey out of her car seat for this one!

We spent our last night at Eglin Air Force Base and went to Ft.Walton Beach the next day for a bit. It was nicer since it wasn't windy, but it was so hot we didn't last long. Poor Bailey was ready to go!

We then met up with Rachael and Eddie and they stayed a night at our house.

The following weekend, we met up with them at their spacious villa down in Seaside. These pictures don't do the place justice. It was beautiful.

Our day at the beach in Seaside was the best by far. The water was just right and the company was great!

We had so much fun with you guys, Ed and Rach!

After the beach, we took a refreshing swim in the pool. (While Bailey relaxed in the shade working on her non-tan.)

And after the long hot day, Bailey was sure ready to head home.