Vacation memories

Here are some pics of our recent trip to Dauphin Island, Alabama. No one got hurt, everyone had a great time and we'll be back next year for more fun!

We're on the road! Our van started acting funny before we left so we ended up taking Nunie's suburban. Boy am I glad we did! Here's the girls (Autie, Anna, Bailey and Jordan) watching High School Musical 2! What a life saver. You know what I like about this picture? The greasy hand prints on the top of the seats. That's classy!


We made a pitstop somewhere in Louisiana for Billy to change his tire. I got to looking at the tire gauge my dad let us borrow and it turns out it really belongs to Billy. He didn't even know his family was into making tire pressure gauges!

All the kids playing in the pool that's in our deck. Did I mention the house had a pool in the deck? If I didn't, I'm surprised because this trip would not have been possible without the pool in the deck. It was the single biggest factor in us renting this particular house. We will never, I repeat, never rent a beach house without some kind of pool right outside the door!

A view of our sweet, not so little beach house. Notice the pool on the right side of the deck. Did I mention how wonderful this pool was? Just outside the door?

So, it turns out that somewhere in my blood line is mermaid. I'm Somoan, but I didn't know there was some mermaid in there, too. And it got passed right on down to Autumn. She swam the entire time we were there. She's not afraid, either. She wanted to go out to the sand bar with the big kids, but there weren't enough adults to hold her. So she was content to play in the surf while all the big kids played on the boogie boards.

Anna, on the other hand, is what I would call a "social swimmer." She doesn't much like the salt water getting on her and she doesn't like getting sand in her swimsuit. She just jumped over the waves as they came in and played in the pool. Did I mention the pool!?!

Avery didn't really like the beach at all. She's already a little afraid of water when it's contained in a swimming pool so you can imagine how overwhelming the ocean was. She liked the pool, though. She and Anna hung out.

This is milk glass man. I don't need to point out which one he is. Elliott and I saw him and we immediatly started trying to think of a name for the kind of white he is. The best word we could come up with is milk glass. You know, the old glass containers that cold cream used to come in. They were white, but almost so white they were blue. These guys were staying in a house close to ours. Milk glass man apparently doesn't get out into the sun that much. He had to put his shirt on later because he was starting to burn. Really? You're kidding!


It seems that my hunter, John, has to hunt down and kill something everywhere we go so it made sense that one of the first things he did was catch a crab and insist that we grill it up and make him a crabby patty! He ended up being grossed out and couldn't eat it after all. A little too late for Mr. Crab.

This shot pretty much sums up the way the house was from morning until night. We spent most of our time saying, "You're wet. Where's your towel? Don't come in here dripping like that! Where's your towel?"


John and Paige both did really well on the boogie boards. They would catch a wave and sometimes ride it all the way to the beach. They had so much fun!

This shot is a little hard to explain but it's just so funny looking I had to include it. After watching HSM2 for the 18th time, naturally we had some of the songs stuck in our head. This is Elliott's interpretive dance to one of those songs.

This has to be one of my all-time favorite shots from the vacation. Don't they look so cute, I mean, cool. I'm not going to say anything about their future, I'm just going to hang on to this one in case I need it later.

Here's mermaid's hiney. I thought it was cute that you could see some of her skin suit!

This is the restaurant the adults went to while Mia and Jordan watched the kids. How sweet is that set-up?!? It was a really neat looking restaurant.

Hi. My name is Elliott. I lost my glasses in the Atlantic Ocean. I can't see further than 3 feet in front of me. Where are you?

Billy and Elliott trying to wrangle a wild gator while we were waiting for a table. Our heroes!

We are so stuffed we can hardly smile!

We had to go to an optometrist so Elliott could get a prescription for some contacts. The doctor's name was Michael Jordan. He said he couldn't believe we didn't go a little farther to Gulf Shores or Orange Beach. Apparently the beaches are waaaaay better there. Thank you Mr. Jordan. We have 7 kids and 2 teenagers and you think we should have driven farther? You better stick to eye exams!

This picture was taken literally just before we all got in to our cars to head home. Bye Dauphin Island. We'll see you next year!