Gulf Shores

Lucky us...we got to leave snowy cold Illinois and head down to Gulf Shores for the week after Christmas. Mom and Dad have a condo for the whole month, so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to go visit them! Their condo is awesome! The kids had their own little bunk room and they were really excited about it. If we had let them they would have spent the whole time in there watching TV!

This was our first trip to Gulf Shores, so we tried to take in all of the fun tourist activities. We ate at Lulu's (Jimmy Buffet's sister's restaurant), the Original Oyster House, went to the Zoo (as seen on Animal Planet), and had a blast go-carting and mini-golfing.

We spent New Years Eve at Lulu's "Noon Years Eve Celebration" The kids got to make jewelry and crafts, play in a giant sand pile and count down to noon years eve where there was a balloon launch and kid-friendly fireworks (aka huge rolls of bubble wrap that the kids jumped on). After Lulu's we went over to the Track recreation center where we played in the arcade, mini-golfed and the kids and Brian rode on a wooden go cart track. Lucky for me we had enough tickets left over that I got to ride on a go cart as well- not my favorite thing!

Overall we loved Gulf Shores...our only glitch was one day we were trying to find the Wharf...which is nowhere near the main drag...and came across Flora-Bama. From what I hear Flora-Bama is an institution. Brian wanted to grab lunch there which sounded like a great idea until we saw it. From what we could see it was just a bunch of trailers in a parking lot. It did not look like a friendly place. My Dad's jaw dropped...it was not what he expected. Needless to say we found somewhere else for lunch. Hopefully next time we'll all be a little braver!

I also have to give a huge cheer out to the kids. We drove straight through on the way home and they were awesome. We didn't hear a peep out of them for 7 hours! Now when they did start talking they were so slap-happy that I didn't know if they were going to stop, but luckily Emmy fell asleep and Tyler found another movie to watch!

So thanks mom and dad for the invite...we had a blast!