The Sunshine State

I haven't written in what feels like forever!

I was extremely busy planning our trip to Florida.

We came home last week. It was so bittersweet. 

I had to watch my family pack up their car to go back to Texas while we were packing ours for Virginia.

The trip was amazing. I got to see my family for the first time in 8 months. My sister, her children and my parents.

We stayed in a condo right by Miramar Beach. Every morning we got up, ate breakfast, and crossed the street to enjoy some sunshine on the beach.
My handsome Mister cooked his "healthy" breakfast while everyone else had Krispy Kreme donuts and pancakes!


The Mr. and his little helpers, my niece and nephew, cooking breakfast!

We have beaches here in Virginia, but they don't even compare to the beaches of Florida.

Perfect white sand and emerald water. We could even see the fish that were down at the bottom of the ocean!
 

We spent the majority of our time body surfing the waves and snorkeling to find seashells and fish!

And burying my nephew Jaxson in the sand!

We also rented a pontoon boat and went out to the party barge on the water and snorkeled.
We found so many hermit crabs! We took Ajax with us and he loved the ride on the boat, but hated the water. Every time we put him in, he'd swim right back to the boat!



We even got him a little life jacket.
He loved to just look at us while we were in the water.




We got tired, so Ajax and I decided we were going to sunbathe on the back of the boat.

On our trip we also went to Fudpuckers.
They had live gators outside of the restaurant and a gator show as well. After we ate we went to the gator show and I got chosen to come and help the handlers hold one of their alligators.
I had never held an alligator before. He was dry and scaly!

Another restaurant we went to while we were there was Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.
Everything in the restaurant had some kind of reference to Forrest Gump!





I got the Shrimper's Heaven.
It had three different dipping sauces, coconut shrimp, fried shrimp, and tempura shrimp... Man was it yummy!

Outside of the restaurant they had a bench and a box of chocolates just like the movie!



They even had sneakers you could put your feet in to look even more like Forrest!

On 4th of July weekend, HarborWalk had a flyover for all the people that have served and are serving in our military.
There were live bands, facepainting, and lots of little shops.
They also had fireworks later that night.

It was a great week with family and I hated to see it end.
We came back sunburned, but it was well worth it.
Time with my family is something I hold dear to my heart.
Since the Mister is in the Navy it's extremely hard to just take a trip somewhere to see them.
This was our first family vacation that my husband was a part of.



He loved getting away from his duties for awhile and hanging out with family.



Lexie and Ajax enjoyed themselves as well!
They had three kids that wanted to hold and play with them every second of the day. Spoiled rotten I tell ya.

I hope we'll get to have another get-together soon.
One where I can see my brother and his family.
He had just gotten back from deployment, so they weren't able to make it.

Since we've been back it's been unpacking and getting the house back in order.