I'm BAAAAAAAAaaaaaaack!

This blog may be boring because I'm basically going to recap our vacation so me, myself, and I can remember what we did each day.
Pictures are on my facebook if y'all would like to see those.

Saturday- We woke up early and all pulled out about 5:15. I had been having horrible stretching pains all day the day before and they started up again as soon as we left :/ Baby is doing some serious growing! Luckily, the pain didn't last all day. We all (Me, Levi, Lucas, Laura, Landry, Reagan, Morgan (Reagan's friend), Buddy, Susan, and Ethan) stopped and ate lunch at some chicken joint down in Louisiana (yuck..). We finally got to the house on Dauphin Island about 3:00. We got settled in, relaxed a little bit, and then went to eat at Barnacle Bill's. I ordered a BLT and the rest of the group got seafood. I read that pregnant women aren't supposed to have too much seafood in one week so I tried to limit myself as much as I could. AND I knew we were going to cook a lot of seafood at the house. The waitresses shirts said something like "the food's great, the service sucks." They weren't lieing. A couple of hours later we finally made it back to the house. I was in bed by 9:30.

Sunday- Laura and I left Dauphin Island in search of a grocery store. We found a little Wal-Mart about 40 minutes away. We loaded that buggie up! I pushed the buggie and she piled in the food....until the buggie got heavy and she wouldn't let me push it anymore. I started having stretching pains again while we were there..ugh..and they continued the rest of the day off and on. We checked out (wow) and made our way back to the island. We passed a neat looking restaurant right on the water that we decided we needed to eat at one night called Pelican Reef. We called it Pelican Brief though ha. We made the men unload all the groceries, had lunch, and changed in to our swimsuits to hit the beach!!! YAAAY!!! The other half of our group got there so they joined us. (Jeff, Heather, 17 month old Hannah, Brian, Robin, and 13 month old Briston) We had two tragedies that day. 1) Levi lost his Oakleys in the ocean that he had just bought a few weeks before and 2) Brian lost his wedding ring in the ocean. They were not happy campers..or should I say happy boogie boarders. The wind got pretty ferocious at times so we had a little trouble getting our umbrellas to stay in the sand. Levi and Lucas were chasing our umbrellas all over the beach! That night we cooked hamburgers and french fries and sat on the back porch. This night I think I got in bed at 9! I'm either getting old, the sound of the ocean is way too relaxing, or this preggo thing wears me out! Or maybe it's a combination of all three..

Monday- We spent most of the day on the beach. The guys went to Skinner's and bought shrimp and oysters to go with the fish they were going to catch the next day. They went and got everything on this day because Skinner's was closed on Tuesdays. We had steaks, baked potatoes, salad, and fried okra that night. After supper we went down to do a little night crab catchin'. I quickly figured out that I highly disliked this activity. I thought I remembered having the time of my life doing this as a child...but those Dauphin Island crabs are psycho! They're big, blend in with the sand, and try to chase you! Nope..nope..didn't like it. Laura and I plopped our butts in a chair far enough away where they couldn't get us! Levi, Lucas, Reagan, and Morgan however, had a great time! Levi and Lucas were like little 10 year olds again. They would go and catch them with their hands, throw them in the bucket, and Levi would watch them and make sure they didn't get out (and talk to them too by the way LOL "Get on back in there!") Did I mention they were huge!? They could almost just jump right out of the bucket. Like, size of my hand, huge :/ I remember "little sand crabs" being....LITTLE!  We should have thrown those suckers in the frying pan. Once again..in the bed by 9:30......

Tuesday- The guys left at 7 a.m. to go Deep Sea Fishing. Laura, Landry, Reagan, Morgan, and I walked down to the bay side that morning. There was a little island that we had to walk through the water to get to, but it was worth it. We found lots of hermit crabs (I had never seen hermit crabs in the wild before..only in stores), a washed up dead sting ray, lots of seashells, a "shark tooth", and a "prehistoric brick from Atlantis." After our little adventure to the bay, I did some laundry, tried to vacuum up some of the sand that had accumulated in our room and bathroom, and then we all went to the marina and welcomed the men back. They all took Dramamine before they got on the boat, but Brian still got sea sick. I was afraid Levi would get sick since this was his first time, but he didn't :) We didn't go down to the beach that afternoon since the guys had been out in the sun all day. Jeff and the rest of the group came over and we cooked the fish that the guys caught on their fishing trip, boiled shrimp, corn, green beans, and twice baked potatoes. Everyone (but me) also ate some fresh oysters.....Preggos can't have raw oysters....they are my favorite....I was mad.... that evening we got to watch a lightning storm in the distance. It was pretty neat until that night when it stormed. I think I had my first protective mommy instinct. I put my arms around my belly when loud thunder woke me up. Oh and guess what? I was in bed by 9:30.

Wednesday- We layed out on the beach all day and that evening we took some family pictures. We then left the island to go to that little restaurant Laura and I spotted on the way back from Wal-Mart that day, The Pelican Reef. Service there was horrible again, but the food was great. Maybe it's an Alabama thing.. I ordered Flounder, crab, fried oysters, shrimp, and coleslaw. I only ate the Flounder and the coleslaw though. I thought the crab was going to be crab legs and it was fried crab claws. Yep, in the bed by 9:30.

Thursday- Levi went and got us Subway for breakfast and then we got dressed to go to Gulf Shores. Buddy, Susan, and Ethan ended up having to leave. Susan is an attorney and had work sent to her. We rode a 35 minute ferry from Dauphin Island to Gulf Shores. I didn't care for the ferry too much. It kind of made me queasy. I tried to keep my attention on Landry or my phone most of the time. When in Gulf Shores, we ate at LuLu's which was wonderful! It was like a mini amusement park/restaurant. We ordered some chips and salsa that was out of this world good! I think I enjoyed the atmosphere more than the food though. Outside the restaurant, Levi found a shaved ice stand where I finally got to have a pina colada! I had wanted to make some at the house, but there wasn't a blender :( We drove around and did a little sight seeing and then stopped at some souvenir shops. Laura spotted a TCBY so we pulled in and had a little snack. Or everyone else did. I'm not a big fan. We headed back to the ferry to go back to the island. Once again, I tried to keep my attention on Landry instead of the water. That evening we ate steak and shrimp and Reagan, Morgan, Levi and Lucas had a volleyball tournament. I had not laughed so hard in a long time!! The sunset that evening was BE-A-U-TIFUL! I took pictures, but you just had to be there... Yep, you guessed it...9:30

Friday- Laura, the girls, and I went down the road to a little bakery for breakfast. Unfortunately, we got there too late and all the good stuff was gone. So, we went to Subway. After breakfast, we got our swimsuits on and headed down to the beach. The girls got a canoe and had a lot of fun with it! Levi thought I needed to get out of the heat for a while so we went and did a little last minute souvenir shopping and ate lunch. We headed back down to the beach about 3:30. Lucas went and got more shrimp and we had fried shrimp, boiled shrimp, fried okra, and I had some left over green beans. Loving me some green beans this week for some reason. We started packing everything up that night so we wouldn't have to do so much the next morning. Levi and I tossed the volleyball around and then I discovered TONS of shells under the house. I tried to collect a bunch for my classroom. I actually stayed up late this night! 9:45.........

Saturday- sad day...sad sad day... I had to say goodbye to the beautiful ocean and beach...We got on the road about 8 and made it to Linden to get our "babies" at 4:15. They were SO excited to see us!!!We then went and picked up Minka and she gave me the biggest hug! We were packed in the car like a can of sardines on the way home! We had all of our luggage and beach gear, 3 dogs, their kennels and beds, and the two of us (or should I say three of us) in my little car. Thankfully, the drive wasn't long. We unpacked and crashed on the couch.

Levi and I decided that besides our honeymoon in Playa del Carmen, that was the best vacation we had ever been on :D