True Vacation Begins- AMI Here We Come!

Friday is finally here, well actually, I shouldn't have said "finally" because it came up so so quickly! We've been planning this since Christmas and it's here already! Even the kids feel that time has been blowing by. We've been packing or at least making lists to prepare to pack, for weeks now. We're all set and as ready as we could possibly be. We are all excited to get on the road...except for one great big speckled thing...poor Sophie. She has been moping around and we've all been showering her with lots of extra love and attention. We all rode along to deliver her to a new kennel, she did great at drop off. It's us who don't do so great. Taylor almost cries and immediately "misses her" each time we have to leave her. We know she will get the care she needs so we are gonna try not to think about it and enjoy our trip...I know she would want us to!

After dropping her off, we headed back to the house to load the van. We have played this "Impala AKA I'm gonna POW ya!" game, similar to "slug bug"for years, it has kinda been hijacked by Dad because once he started playing with his "impala eagle eye" it kinda sucked the joy out of it for the rest of us. I mean, who wants to play a game where ya just continuously get slugged?! lol...anyways, Dad calls out "Impala, black one", Blake just says, "Dad, I'm not playing that...I'm just gonna count trucks to myself, instead." Well...since he put it out there, Dad took that game over too, annoyingly calling out all the trucks he could spot before Blake had a chance to even catch a glimpse of them..."TRUCK, TRUCK, TRUCK..." Seeing annoy Blake so, made Tay and I join in...everyone was calling out "TRUCK TRUCK TRUCK", as fast as we could spot em!! You could see the annoyed look on Blake's face as another game was hijacked...lol!! We are total dorks and that made us all start cracking up even more. It feels good to laugh together :)

We got all loaded up with not an inch to spare. The kids immediately got in their spots for the ride and sat in the van, waiting to leave. We were beach bound by noon this time! We got all the way to downtown STL before getting mixed up and making out 1st detour. We hit a bit of construction traffic and fought through the crazy high-speed drivers in Atlanta. We only stopped once an the Florida Georgia line to nap. The sounds of tropical birds had us cracking up! So much so that it was hard to fall asleep...it sounded just like a wild bird recording right outside our car window...like 20 sounds coming from one tiny bird, perched right outside our van...lol!

We made it to the island at 8am, the earliest ever! Our condo was already open, so we unloaded and got settled. The forecast called for storms and riptides, so we expected to arrive with less than ideal beach conditions, but it was no less amazing. Rough waves, but no rain. Such a blessing to be have safely arrived at such a humbling, amazing place! Thanks God for this wondrous creation!

     

     

We ran out to the water, kids already enjoying. Pure bliss. We watched for Wayne and Regina to arrive and helped them get unloaded. It was so great to see them and enjoy this place together. We ended the night catching up over tacos and margaritas, Witnessing a beautiful sunset, what an awesome first day!