We Don't Need Putt Putt

The documentation of the second day of our vacation was somewhat marred by our camera. It got some kind of film on the lens that made the first half of the pictures blurry, and then it got some kind of spot on it that caused a large black dot on all the pictures. We pressed on anyways. It was our first full day at the beach and we had a blast. We started by diving right into the sand. Why wait until the end to make everything a big sandy mess? Drew and I both took turns burying the other in the sand, which he thought was great. We spent the rest of the morning building sand castles, as we had bought some accessories to assist us at the grocery store. Well, let me rephrase that. I built sand castles while Drew either dug or tried to help while he was actually probably knocking things down. But we had fun doing it. Drew's favorite game was letting the water hit his feet and then running away back into the sand. We took a break for lunch and came back out in the afternoon. We spent some more time at the beach, but then we went to the pool area. We actually had to go to the 1 foot kiddie pool, not just because we had Drew, but also because it was so much warmer than the full size pool. Then we went inside to the indoor pool for the real swimming.

That night we went to Margaritaville's sister restaurant, Lulu's. It's done by Jimmy Buffett's sister and is actually pretty good. Katie and I had been there last time we were down there and wanted to go back. The best part was while we were waiting to be seated. The restaurant is situated at a marina and has a lot of boats there, a sandy area for the kids to play, and other things. In the sand area they have a volleyball net where a lot of probably twenty or more 8-12 year old kids were playing girls against boys. Drew likes volleyball and wanted to play despite not knowing anyone and just about all the kids being older than him. He was a little shy at first. He walked away from us and had to walk maybe a hundred feet or more to the net. He looked back and waved at least a couple of times before he finally made it there. It took him a few minutes to get acclimated, but then he really shined. He easily became friends with a couple older boys and pretty soon they were making sure he was getting to hit the ball over the net every few times. He would give them five, run after the ball with them, and was really having a great time. Katie and I just sat there watching, marveling at how old he was, how big he was, how he wasn't shy like us, and hoping that one day he would be cooler than we were- or that maybe he already was. We had to tear him away to go eat dinner. I had a crab melt sandwich, which was all right, but I really wish I would have gotten something else. They had a guy sitting up front playing live music kind of like the Bahama Breeze entertainment, but a little better.

After dinner we attempted to go play putt putt at the Pirate Island Putt Putt not too far from dinner. Attempted is the key word. Because we had gotten to Lulu's a little late we had to wait about an hour for a table. By the time we finished dinner it was nine, and thus a little after nine by the time we got to putt putt. They closed at nine. That didn't stop us though. Drew had probably more fun running around and playing with and looking at the pirate decor than he would have had playing putt putt. We stood in the stocks, shot cannons, took over their ship, and had a great time playing Captain Hook and Peter Pan. I don't think he even realized we hadn't played putt putt by the time we left.

Another great part of the trip was how the kids slept so well. It was a 3 bedroom condo and we were determined that Drew was going to sleep by himself, just like at home. We let him have his pick and he picked the room with two twin beds over the queen bed. He did great. We let him watch TV at night when he was going to sleep and every morning he would wake up with the biggest smile and say "I stayed up watching TV all night!" I think he probably really did do that at nap time a couple days. Allie slept in our room in her pack and play. This was definitely a key part of the trip for mom and dad's enjoyment. We all slept well actually.

Still more to come tomorrow- hopefully. It was tonight 13 years ago that Katie and I went on our first date. We ate at Mozarella's, which used to be in Saddle Creek in Germantown, and went and saw the re-release of Grease. Don't laugh, haha. Love you Katie!