Florida 2015

Several weeks back, as we sat at home celebrating our 5th anniversary, Stuart told me that he had a gift for me, even though we had decided we wouldn't do gifts for one another.  He had a week of vacation coming up later in July, but had a couple of interviews planned that filled up the week.  We were planning a big, family road trip to travel to all of the interviews... at least we would get to spend some time together.  Well, my gift was that he cancelled the later interview scheduled for that week and was going to take us to the beach on our first-ever family vacation instead!  Truly, best gift ever.

So, we drove south to Birmingham over the first weekend of his vacation (which I also have photos from but those will be in another post...) and then drove on to the Emerald Coast at Miramar Beach, FL.  We spent the week lounging in our condo, watching TV (! because we don't have one - James thought this was awesome.  Also, by the end of the week, I was very glad we don't have one at home!), but mostly walking out to the beach and playing in the sand.  We would go down almost every wake time, every day, and play until the boys were worn out.

James had a GREAT time playing in the sand, though he did not like the "cold" water.  Samuel had less fun, and his favorite part was sitting in the shade of the umbrella in mama's lap.  He also didn't mind sitting right at the surf line, also in mama's lap.

Thank you to Stuart/daddy for such an awesome trip!  (More photos to come after this post...)