Florida 2009

We started our vacation by traveling to Texarkana last Friday to stay the night with Mimi and Poppi so we could all leave for Florida together. Mimi cooked the best fried catfish that we have EVER had. Oh.my.word. i ate wayyyyy too much and didn't regret it one bit. I hadn't had FRIED catfish in soooo long. oh, it just melted in my mouth. graham was a fan too. we played outside in their yard for a while as we waited on the catfish. i rode around in the woods on the golf cart looking for the bobcats that have made their home back there...no luck. unfortunately, I didn't find them.

one of graham's favorite places to be is riding on his daddy's shoulder. he laughs the entire time. it's so cute to watch. and he just rests his arm on chad's head.

graham at 5am Saturday morning. he is such a morning baby. love it

"Mommy, are we there yet??

12 hours later, we finally made it to our condo in Destin. It was so much more fabulous in person

at 1am, some stupid drunkards decided to pull the fire alarm so everyone had to evacuate. The alarm was soooo loud and graham didn't even BUDGE. we hated to wake him but we had to get out of there.

man, i love these two guys!!

Sunday, we decided to get back in the car and travel to Irvington, Alabama (close to Mobile which was 2 hours away from Destin) to see my mom's sister, my sister Judy and the rest of the family. We wanted to just go ahead and do the traveling on Sunday to get it over with. I hated putting graham back in his carseat to travel some more but he's such a trooper. we had a great time! We sat around and visited and ate some good ol Vietnamese cuisine. Chad got out in the backyard with the boys and taught them how to throw a football. The lil boys loved it!

Jennifer, Steve (my sister's fiancee), Graham, Judy (my sister), Eric, Wee, and Ten. Can you tell which child is only 1/8 Vietnamese????

Graham and Chan - my cousin, Lam's, wife and Jennifer's mother

Graham and Ten (i know i am probably spelling his name wrong but I'm just spelling it how you say it)

Jennifer and Ten

My mom and my aunt Nuong

Graham and my cousin Lam...he adored graham and didn't want to put him down. Lam and his wife, Chan, have a daughter, Jennifer who is just absolutely gorgeous! The three boys belong to my cousin Khanh and his wife. We didn't get to see Khanh and his wife. They were in West Palm Beach where they live.

Poppi, Chad and Steve on the ferry ride from Mobile to Gulf Shores. We went to Steve's house for a while.

Steve's dock

Killer the black cat

Steve's house

this house is for sale for 7 million. anyone want to go in with us to buy it???

Graham and Poppi

The mullet my sister caught.

she was fishing with this net...it was pretty neat but difficult to maneuver if you ask me. you have to have technique.

so chad decided to try it...and did really well! caught nine fish in an hour. that's the kind of fishing i'm talking about.

Graham and his Aunt Judy

isn't that a GORGEOUS sunset??

The AJ's pirate ship that was shooting blanks outside of our condo...this is the view from our balcony.

Monday morning, Chad and I hit the beach by ourselves around 830am and stayed out there til 11am. Around noon, Judy and Steve came from Gulf Shores and brought us lunch. Boiled Shrimp and Crawfish...my kind of lunch. Then we all headed to the beach.

Graham's first time on the beach. he didn't mind the sand...but the waves in the ocean freaked him out...he wasn't so much a fan.

Yes, I am wearing a swimdress. not because I have stretch marks because thankfully i didn't get any but I have always loved them. and I wanted to hide my fat thighs. I was doing everyone on the beach a favor by not having to look at the imprints that the waffle iron left when it smacked me on the backside a couple hundred times.

and can you believe we are in the ocean?!?! the water is so clear!
this is why I have always loved swimdresses:

this picture makes me laugh so hard! I caught Graham mid fall.

My sister, mom and me at dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. the best prime rib I have EVER had.

Tuesday was mine and Chad's day to do whatever we wanted to do. So, since we were so sunburned from spending all day Monday on the beach, we decided to check out the outlets. Unfortunately, we didn't have either cameras so we didn't get any pictures. But we got graham some fall clothes and got a few things for me and Chad. Then we ate some crab legs at Gilligan's. We got back to the condo around 5pm and Poppi and Chad went fishing and me, mom and Graham hit the beach and then the pool.

if you can see that black mass in the middle, that's a sting ray that we watched from our balcony. We also had the pleasure of watching so many dophins playing in front of us too. amazing!

Wednesday, we hung out at the beach again and then had plans to get ready and then go out to the sand dunes to take our family picture. When I got in the shower it was sunny and gorgeous...and then I stepped out of the shower to this knarly storm. The winds were so strong that it nearly knocked me off of my feet.

and then an hour later it was sunny and gorgeous again. But it started raining pretty hard AGAIN an hour later so we decided to just take some pictures on the balcony. I tried to get Chad and Graham changed into the outfits that we had planned but neither one of them were having it.

After our balcony pictures, Chad, Graham and myself headed to The Crab Trap.

Graham enjoyed eating his tomatos, cucumbers, lettuce, fish and fries. the crab he wasn't thrilled about eating. he threw it back at me.

Graham loves sharing his food. he is such a little sweetie!

Thursday morning sunrise.

Graham saying bye to Mimi before we hit the road to Little Rock. We decided not to go back to Texarkana and just go straight to LR from Destin.


We had such a fabulous time and can't wait to go back next year!! But next year we will definitely stay a few days longer. There was so much to do and not enough time...and it will definitely be a lot easier when Graham can walk. Carrying a ton of stuff to the beach and back with baby on hip is certainly NOT easy. But it was all worth it.