We had such a fantastic trip to Orange Beach in September! We think that there are many bonuses to homeschooling, but traveling to the beach in September when the water is still warm, but the beach is nearly empty, is near the top of the list! :) My parents came over the night before we left for dinner and to say goodbye. We had just bought Connect 4 at a garage sale. Emma loved playing it with my dad. Uncle Mike came late that night and spent the night at our house, and then he left for Houston when we left for the beach. We wanted to drive it all in one day and not stop-unload-reload at a hotel, so we got up at 4:00 am and started driving.
We got to our condo on Saturday afternoon by 5:00 pm. We grocery shopped and had the best pizza in Orange Beach for supper. The kids loved exploring the condo! Hurricane Ivan was en route toward Miami on Saturday evening/Sunday, so we were watching the news and weather station very carefully. Dave refueled our Suburban, and we bought extra cases of water. We spent Sunday morning at the beach, and, in spite of the wind picking up, it was so fun! (We hadn't been to the beach in three years--last time I was still in my first trimester with Josiah and didn't do too much other than sit under the sun umbrella.) There's just something amazing about sand, water, and kids--they LOVE it! We came out again after nap time that afternoon, but by then it was very windy. Our legs hurt from the sand whipping at our legs. They were setting up for a wedding though, and we watched it from our balcony. It was definitely a windy wedding!
The lady at the front desk didn't make us feel any better when she said that Hurricane Ivan was paralleling Hurricane Irma of 2003. Both were projected to hit Miami, but Irma turned and ultimately hit Gulf Shores. Both started with a letter "I," had four letters, and hit on September 10. She assured us, though, that management would pound on our door in the middle of the night if we needed to evacuate. Yikes, that made us (really, me--Dave just doesn't worry!) feel terrible. I was imagining us stuck on the two-lane bridge that leaves Gulf Shores along with all the other vacationers. Ha!
That night we drove to Foley's and went to Lambert's Cafe. My friend from Kodaly classes at SMU recommended this, and it was so fun! Lambert's is like an "extreme Cracker Barrel"--there are so many antiques hanging from the ceilings. The booths are very close together, and it has a very "homey" atmosphere. Everyone's favorite part is that they THROW your bread rolls at you. A gentleman walks up and down the aisles pushing a cart of freshly-baked rolls. If you want a roll, you wave and he pitches it at you! Everyone watches and laughs!
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| Lambert's Cafe in Foley, Alabama--home of "The Throwed Rolls" |
Monday was a really fun day! Because of how windy and cool it was from the hurricane, we drove to Mobile and visited the USS Alabama. I was the only one who had a jacket/sweatshirt packed, so we stopped at Old Navy in Mobile and bought everyone something warm to wear.
It was so sobering touring the ship. My grandfather who was in the Army in WWII traveled across the Atlantic Ocean on a ship . He never talked about it very much, but we all knew from inferences he made that it must have been awful and tight quarters. When I saw beds like this (above), I thought of my grandpa and the many sons/fathers/husbands who sacrificed for us in WWII. But then, I was really humbled and began to cry when I saw the bunks (below pic) and Dave explained to me that the beds in the picture above were for higher-ranking Armymen; troops, like my grandpa when he began his Army service, were in bunks like these below, sleeping in shifts. They didn't have one bunk to call their "own"--they just found an empty one. Wow--it was really eye-opening and made me wish I could hug my grandpas all over again!
During WW II, the USS Alabama was helped by the USS Drone (submarine) which was also on display. Crawling through the USS Drone was quite a tight fit! It was hard for us to believe that nearly 80 men were stationed on it at a time.
After we drove back to Orange Beach, Emma and I went on some errands while the boys all stayed at the condo. My parents had sent money for the kids to spend on souvenirs. Emma was very conservative in her spending and only wanted to spend a few dollars at the Dollar Tree for new butterfly wings and metallic bobby pins. She said she wanted to take the rest of her money home! (Smart girl!)
A top favorite for this trip for all of us was playing games! Uno, Connect 4, and Scrambled States of America were our favorites on this trip. We stayed up nearly every night playing games, and after each round the kids just begged for another round and another round. So fun!
Isaac used his money to buy this captain's hat on the USS Alabama, and he wore it everywhere on the trip, even to bed. The kids shared a room with two beds in it, and each night a different child switched beds to keep it all "fair" :)
Emma and I had some sweet early-morning walks on the beach. While we were walking, she'd say "Close your eyes!" and then she'd put another seashell in my hands. She collected so many shells! One morning when we came back, I found her hanging over the edge of the kitchen sink washing and drying all of them. I brought home one angel wing shell she gave me.
We had so much fun chasing ghost crabs at night! It was fun to see all the lanterns up and down the beach as different family groups were out hunting. The kids were so impressed when I caught some! Josiah hated crab hunting the whole time, but then when we got back into the condo after hunting he kept saying, "Thank you for taking me crab hunting!"
On Wednesday, we drove to Pensacola to watch the Blue Angels practice! My friend Shelley had raved about this, and it was truly as awesome as she had described. We all loved watching the Blue Angels fly, and now my kids are experts with the terms "dirty roll," "clean roll," "diamond formation," and "afterburner."
After watching the Blue Angels, we grabbed our favorite pizza in Orange Beach (Rotolo's) and played more games on the balcony. I also taught Isaac how to play Scrabble on this trip! He did really well for his first time!
Emma dug this hole by herself one morning.
We took walks up and down the beach around dusk. Josiah would run ahead of us and raise his arms, flapping and running after the birds. These are sweet memories I don't want to forget!
Out on the sandbar, Dave saw sting rays and a few live jellyfish. There were also some large, dinner-plate size jellyfish (dead) on the beach in the mornings (locals said because of the hurricane). Isaac hauled the jellyfish on his large shovel and yelled, "We've found another prisoner!"
Isaac found many skate egg cases (also called mermaid's purses or devil's purses) on the beach. We had a lot of fun all reading more about skates and their egg cases. The egg case holds the fertilized egg until it is ready to hatch out of the case, and then the cases often float onto the shore. There were probably so many this time because of the hurricane. When we got home, Isaac did a presentation on skate egg cases for CC. He began to describe the egg cases and asked if anyone knew what he was describing; both he and I were so surprised when one of the girls in her class raised her hand and said, "Is it a mermaid's purse!?!" Ha! He was excited to show his real egg cases that we brought home from the beach as well as the egg cases he made himself out of black paper.
Another highlight was our dolphin cruise. It was so amazing to see the dolphins leap right by our boat, solo, duet, and even a trio of dolphins one time!
On Friday evening, we had our pictures taken at the beach. We loved the photographer we used, and she made it so fun! There was a crane wandering around the beach while we were taking pictures, which the kids loved! After pictures, we had dinner at the Shrimp Basket. It was the only sit-down meal we went to on our trip, and it was fantastic! We had the sweetest waitress, who was a single mom of two teenagers. She loved our kids, and at the end of the meal she came out and asked Dave and me if she could please treat our kids to a free dessert because they were so obedient and well-mannered, saying "please" and "thank you". My kids aren't perfect (and we told her that!), but we are training hard and it was so encouraging to receive such a nice compliment and have my kids get a fun surprise!
Our trip ended with a visit to the urgent care! After we had everything loaded, we all went out to the balcony to look at the ocean one last time and pray and thank the Lord for our amazing week. Josiah turned and started to walk into the condo, but instead he hit his head straight onto a corner by the patio door. Dave immediately knew he would need stitches. We threw everything in the Suburban while I called urgent care. They had a doctor there who did stitching. Josiah had three stitches. Dave held Josiah still in the body case, but as soon as the doctor was done stitching Dave had to leave because he was getting so sick. Because of our detour to urgent care, we ended up getting home much later than we thought, but it was still the best week!
Favorites of Orange Beach (keeping in mind for our next trip!)
Restaurants-- Rotolo's Pizza in Orange Beach (the BBQ Chicken was the best--we went twice on our trip), Shrimp Basket in Orange Beach, and Lambert's in Foley (not too far of a drive)
Dolphin Cruise--Surf's Up Dolphin Cruises
USS Alabama in Mobile
Blue Angels practice in Pensacola (beautiful drive!)
