GONE FISHIN'

The other night we headed out to the "new house" and Ryan took Brynn fishing!  First, we all went out to our backyard where we used to have a garden, and we dug around and found worms.  That was hilarious.  She kept saying "they're too wormy!"  Ryan would tell her to just touch one and she would say "I just wanna touch the ones that are asleep."  (aka not moving/wiggling!)

Then we headed out and they started fishing.  I don't know much about when are good times of the year/day to fish, but it must be around now because they were biting like CRAZY.  We would cast out the pole and within ONE minute they would have a bite and reel one in.  It was so fun to watch them and hear Brynn get so excited.  "GET IT DADDY!  THERE'S A FISH!"

She kept asking if we could scoop up the fish with this net.

The fish, Daddy, Brynn, and a pink princess fishing pole.  =)

Then as Brynn moved closer to me, you'd hear her shout "LOOK DADDY...A FISH!  GET IT DADDY!"

 Emory just got to watch from the carrier, but we had fun watching them and taking pictures.  It was such a fun little experience, and I can't wait until we can just walk down to the pond after supper and do this anytime!  Maybe Brynn will even touch a worm that's "awake."  HA!

Gulf Shores - Day 4 - My Birthday!

Friday was our last day at the beach, and also happened to be my birthday!  I woke up feeling better than I had the night before, which was nice!  I always get up early, so after grabbing my morning cup of coffee, I went to sit out on our 18th floor balcony and looking over to the ocean/beach I saw this...

People had been writing messages in the seaweed all week, and we would laugh at all the messages.  Just the day before it said "Happy 70th Frank" and we happened to be on the balcony to watch "Frank" lay down by his sign and take a picture.  Then when I woke up, my silly husband had changed Frank to "Whit" and I got my special birthday message in the sand.  =)

I don't know how I ended up with Brynn's Ariel towel around me, (and I just fell asleep in my dress from the night before), but once Brynn woke up we had a little birthday celebration that morning.

The weather was kind of yucky but it was supposed to clear up later in the day, so we decided to eat my birthday meal for lunch instead of supper.  We were also celebrating Curt passing BOTH of his pharmacy Boards!  YAY Curt!  We headed to one of our favorite restaurants in Gulf Shores...Original Oyster House.

They have a bunch of cute shops you can browse while you wait...clearly these two had fun shopping!

When lunch was over, it was starting to clear up, so we headed out to the beach and let Brynn play in the waves for the last time.  We ate some leftovers at the condo and then around dusk we headed out to get ice cream and take Brynn to a souvenir shop.  She had been wanting to walk in the "shark's mouth store."  =)

We had such a beautiful view all week.  Then we headed out for ice cream and this is what the sunset looked like..SO PRETTY!

First, we headed to this boardwalk thing where you were supposed to MAYBE see some alligators.  We didn't see any and it was getting pretty dark, but we had a lot of fun.  We started calling pretend alligator names and somehow turned it into a game of yelling all names that start with A.  Just a funny moment...always fun with my family!

I told Ryan I swore I saw an alligator, but it turned out just to be this stick...

The moon was SO PRETTY all week.

Then we got some yummy ice cream!  We ate it near that boardwalk thing and I was a little nervous that alligators were going to walk around and get us while we were eating!

She picked out a pink stuffed turtle for herself and a pink sparkly stuffed dolphin for Emory.  She was really excited to go in this store...I didn't think we were ever going to get her out of there.  "Look at this guys..."  Even my mom wanted to buy Brynn a hermit crab!  WHAT?  We DID NOT get one of those.  But thanks for the idea mom...maybe you can get one and keep it at your house??

She was TUCKERED out the next morning when we got on the road.

We left around 8:30 on Saturday morning and couldn't wait to get home to Emory.  We had such a great time with our family and spending special one on one time with just Brynn.  CAN'T WAIT TO HEAD BACK NEXT SUMMER!

Gulf Shores - Day 3 - Beach Time/Date Night

Warning - this post contains about 1,672 pictures!  HA!

We woke up and headed to the beach.  My parents have never para-sailed, so they decided to do it.  We headed under the tents and watched!

 Brynn inched closer and closer to the waves, which weren't as crazy as the other days.

 We practiced trying to JUMP in the waves...

 She was still a little timid...

I guess it was a little safer to jump back here??

 We started building sand castles...(I know my shirt looks weird...I thought Ryan sprayed my stomach with sunscreen really good the first day, but it got SO BURNT so I wore a shirt for the rest of the week.)

They made Brynn a little "bath tub" in the sand and she liked the water coming in.

 And that did it...she was a HUGE fan of the ocean after this.

Linz and I had fun attempting to "ride" the waves...

 And then we all stood around and did this for about half an hour straight...Brynn would scream (happy scream) at the top of her lungs and jump each wave...I didn't know if we were ever going to quit watching her do this. =)

 

She even had fun going out far with Daddy...

 I was so glad she loved the ocean as much as she did!  She was almost hoarse from all her hooping and hollering in the waves.

Later that night my parents took Brynn out to eat pizza and she wanted to play in the ocean some more, and Ryan and I and Lindsey and Curt all went out for a special dinner/date because my birthday was the next day!

We went to Louisiana Lagniappe and it was SO GOOD!  We had such a fun meal and as always, we laughed a TON and just always have such a great time together.  I just love them SO MUCH!

The only bummer was that after dinner I started not feeling super well.  We were going to go play mini-golf but we ended up heading back to the condo and just watched some hockey play-offs and hanging out.  But it was still such a GREAT GREAT DAY!