Hi, friends! Happy Thursday! This week has been great. Hope yours has been too.
Yesterday I had a few hours by myself and I swam the whole time! It was so peaceful and just what I needed after stressing over homework.
Today I want to continue sharing about our Florida vacation. If you aren’t interested in any of the background information on what we did, skip straight down to the video at the end. It will show all the highlights of these days!
If you like to know the info on what we did, get comfy and continue reading!
Day 4
Monday we woke up and it was a beautiful morning so we headed straight to the beach.
We could only stay at the beach for a few hours because we had a fun afternoon for the girls planned.
We loaded the car and headed to Panama City Beach, FL. This was about 60 miles from where we were staying at in Navarre. It took us about 1.5 hours to get there because of traffic.
We finally made it to Gulf World Aquarium.
The girls were able to swim with the dolphins at this place. They spent about an hour total in the water with the dolphins. It was SUCH a neat experience. Chris and I, along with his parents, got to watch them while they swam. However, there were no cell phones allowed out during this time.
They say it’s for safety of the dolphins so they don’t get distracted, but I say it’s so you’ll spend another $100 to buy their professional pictures they took!
The girls were able to kiss the dolphins, shake their hands (fins), hug them, hold onto their fins and swim around with them, and were pushed up from their legs by the dolphin’s nose!
It was so cool!
After they swam with the dolphins, we stayed for their dolphin show. It was excellent! In my video below, there are tons of video clips from the show.
Since we were in Panama City we made the most of it and walked down to their pier and did a little shopping. We were going to eat at The Back Porch, but it was too long of a wait so we left.
We made it back in time to crab hunt and then hit the hay! We were exhausted!
Day 5
Tuesday started as a great beach day, but quickly became a rain shower off and on. We made many different trips back and forth from the condo to the beach, trying to get as much beach time as possible. I shared this picture of the girls on my IG, but wanted to share it again. 2014 on the left and 2018 on the right. I hope every 4 years we can recreate this picture!
Tuesday was our wedding anniversary. It was so nice to celebrate it on the beach (with the girls)!
Nana and Papa came down that evening too because it was so nice out. Lequeeta can’t get out in the sun because of her chemo, so since it was cloudy and cool, they were able to come down. Liz and her Papa dug them a special spot in the sand for their chairs.
When it was starting to get dark, we went and walked along the Navarre fishing pier right by our condo. We saw sea turtles, sting rays, and lots of people fishing. It was a beautiful evening!
We ate a late supper at a local restaurant where we could watch a sand volleyball league being played! Then ended the night at Tommy’s SnoBalls and crab hunting.
Day 6
Wednesday we started at the beach but it started raining once again around 11:00 a.m. We decided to drive into Destin with Chris’s parents and eat at McGuire’s Irish Pub. This place is one of my favorite restaurants! If you visit the Destin, FL area, try to go. And order some Boxty’s! Yummy!
You can sign $1 bills and hang them up in the restaurant. There is over 2 million dollars worth of $1 bills hanging in this specific restaurant! (Notice Emily put her FortNite name on her dollar)! She is addicted…
We headed back to Navarre and finally had a great afternoon on the beach.
It was raining again that evening so we couldn’t go crab hunting.
Whew! That was long! Hope you are still hanging with me.
Click on the video below to check out even more pictures and videos!
Hope y’all have a great Thursday. I’ll be here tomorrow for Friday Favorites and will have one more Florida recap for you next week.
~Jen
I just love vacation posts! Whoa those clouds are pretty dark in several pictures! Looks like y’all had the best time
Yes, we watched some gnarly storms roll in!
These posts have been SO fun to read and watch! I absolutely love the videos you have made…and I am going to send you an email about them shortly!! It looks like you guys had the time of your lives there =)
We had the best time. Those few days were my favorites from the trip. I’ll be looking forward to your email. Have a good day!