Family

The last night on the island we decided to try to get some family pictures with the beautiful sunset.  This sounded like a great idea but it didn't go quite as planned.  Sunset happens right around dinner time so the boys were very hungry and they had been on the beach all day so they were a little tired but we did our best and ended up with some fun family photos!

Gulf Adventures

We decided to leave the Island and do some exploring along the Gulf on our last day on the island.  We piled into our vehicles and drove over to Gator Ranch in Moss Point, MS.  We toured around their park amazed by the size of the Gators, some of us were brave enough to hold a young gator (not me) and then piled into an airboat for a ride around the swamp!!  It was a lot of fun and what is even more exciting is that we say the guys from the show Gator Boys just hanging out when we got back from our airboat ride.  I have to admit I was a little star struck just standing there hanging out by them like it was no big deal.  

After all that gator excitement we piled back into the vans and headed over to Ocean Springs, MS for some lunch at The Shed.  Now this place has been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (a show that Frankie makes watch more than I might like to admit) and Frankie has also seen them compete on the show BBQ Pit Masters.  Frankie was like a kid in the candy store at this stop.  This place was built buy a guy collecting "trash" and putting it together to make a shed and then continued to gather items from around the country to build quite the establishment.  We enjoyed our bbq lunch and then spent at least a half hour exploring the grounds.  Frankie spotted their competition smoker and couldn't pass up the opportunity to inspect it a little bit.  They had an old phone booth so I was trying to explain what it was to Colton and he thought it was hilarious that people had to go into a booth and insert quarters to make a phone call... oh have things have changed!  We also of course took plenty of photos and as we were taking a family photo in front of their main entrance one of the employees came out and asked if he could take a picture of us to put on their Facebook page... guess we must look like pretty awesome people! 

Below is their competition smoker.... pretty sweet!!

After lunch we headed back to the island, making just one pit stop to pick up some fresh boiled crawfish.  We got back to the island, put on our beach gear and spent the afternoon on the beach building a sand alligator, a sand turtle, turning Marissa into a mermaid, playing in the water and some of the brave ones enjoyed their crawfish. I do not eat those things... the minute you pull them apart you can see poop so there is no way I will put that into my mouth, I prefer my food to be poop free!  It was a perfect afternoon and we made the most of it!

Simply Stunning

One of my favorite things to photograph while on our Island vacation is sunsets.  There is something so magical about a sunset over the water while you are sitting on a white sand beach listening to the waves crashing against the shore.  We had several stunning sunsets during this vacation however this night was my favorite and you will quickly see why when you look at these pictures!

 This is God's Artwork!  I have done no editing to these pictures at all... there was no need for editing as the pictures are stunning just the way they were!

Sunshine and Sunsets!

We are back home from our island vacation and wishing we could go back already!  It is amazing how fast 2 weeks goes by when you are having a great time.  I finally have some free time to go back and share some more pictures and adventures from our vacation.  My parents, my sister and brother in law, some family friends and one of my best friends joined us on the island the second week and the weather turned pretty nice.  Frankie was excited to have the guys on the island so he could do some deep sea fishing trips and the rest of us pent as much time as possible playing on the beach and enjoying sunset walks along the water. We spent one gloomy day exploring Fort Gaines (again, this was the 12th time Colton and I have explored the fort) and we took the Mobile Bay Ferry over to Gulf Shores for dinner at Lambert's - Home of the Throwed Rolls!  Here are some pictures from the first couple days on the island with the big group. 

The boys and I worked hard on this awesome sand shark (okay, I worked hard and they just watched me)!

Island Life

We have been living the Island life for 4 days already, this vacation always goes way too fast!  We spent our first night unpacking and just enjoying being out of the vehicle after the two day drive!  The boys had fun building a fort with Uncle Richard (he had picked up the supplies include 150+ army men and was very excited for the boys to show up).  We had beautiful weather on Monday and spent most of the day on the beach, enjoying lunch on the deck and exploring Fort Gaines!  Tuesday and Wednesday were chilly and rainy so we hung out indoors playing several games of Mexican Train Dominoes, watching cartoons and just hanging out!  The sun was back today and while it was still a bit cold and the wind was still there we didn't let that keep us indoors.  We spent over an hour hiking around at the Bird Sanctuary on the island and then after lunch we spent 3 hours on the beach building a sand castle, fishing and feeding the birds!  We are having a great time on vacation and still have one week of fun remaining!  Here are some pictures from the last couple days, we love living the island life!

 

Pinewood Derby Races

Well it is that time of year again, Pinewood Derby Races!  Colton was pretty excited to work on his car this year.  He sanded it,polished the nails (for the wheels), painted and added decals to his car and helped Pop Pop with timing the wheels to make sure they had put enough graphite on them so that each one would spin for at least 15 seconds!  The only thing he couldn't help with was adding weights to his car because that involved melting down lead with a blow torch and metal spoon and pouring the hot liquid metal into the car while making sure the car is only 5 ounces or under otherwise he wouldn't be allowed to race!  I never realized how much is involved in building a derby car (well building one that will be competitive)!  Of course we couldn't let Colton build cars alone so my dad built one for himself and one for Mason.  And then when all three cars were done and ready for the races, Frankie and my dad decided to build two more cars.  Frankie built a limo and my dad designed a ritz cracker which my mom would use to compete on race day!

Finally the big day arrived and the boys were so excited to race their cars.  First up was the open class and all four of our cars did awesome - actually there was only 1 car faster!  My dad placed 2nd in the open class with his car and the others came in 3rd, 4th and 5th!  My dad and Frankie are on a mission to build the fastest one for next year!   I was just worried that all of our cars did good and that Colton's would be slow.   And then the first Scout race was under way and Colton's car jumped the track.  My heart sank, if it breaks he is out and will be crushed.  Luckily his car was fun and they let him rerun that race.. he took first.  He raced 3 more times and placed 1st in every one of those heats as well.   Yup you guessed, he took First place and he has advanced to the district races next month!  He is pretty excited and is hoping to bring home another trophy at district... only time will tell!