Panama City Beach 2015

Such an adventure! When we booked this trip almost 6 months ago we knew we were nuts. 13 hours in a car with 4 kids 6 and under? Sure, why not!
We decided to leave at 4am so we could just pull the kids out of bed, throw them in the van and hopefully the kids would sleep a few hours before we would need to stop. They slept until Alabama! We were thrilled to get about 5 hours before we had to make the first stop. We stopped at a McDonalds, ate breakfast, changed diapers and stretched our legs. Our next stop was around lunch time in this tiny little restaurant called the Tin Top Cafe. It was as Southern as they come! Sweet people and good home cooking. I was pretty fried at this point though and just wanted to get to Florida. I had bought both the bigger kids a whole lot of cheap toys, games, puzzles and things at the Dollar Tree and it all kept them busy for the entire drive! We didn't turn the dvd player on once!
Towards the end of the journey Todd climbed in the back to break up the babies boredom.

 After 12 hours and 40 minutes we pulled into our condo and I was SO EXCITED!!! The E's threw on their suits and we went straight to the beach! Wes and Audrey weren't sure what to think at first but they quickly adapted and began playing in the sand.

With the sun quickly setting we made our way back to the condo to unpack and Todd went to the grocery to stock up for our week. The sunset that night was beautiful and I knew the week was going to be great. Not a break by any means but a week to make fun memories and have new experiences.

So this is the part in the post I post a billion pictures!!!
Our daily beach life was pretty routine, I am SOOOO glad we took our baby corral. Otherwise, we would've been chasing babies in opposite directions all week.

By the end of the week we were able to leave them out a lot more but it was nice to have somewhere to put someone if they kept wanting to run away.
The weather all week was perfect, 79 and sunny each day.

One morning we all went down to the beach so I could try and get some family pictures. I took the trouble of hauling my tripod down so by God I was trying to get a family shot. I was so happy it worked out!

If I could only move here and take pictures here every day! The light, the ocean, everything is so beautiful!

 Not exactly what I was going for in this one. Funny though :)

We decided to take the E's on a pirate cruise one day. But also decided it would just be too tough with the babies. So I stayed at the condo while the babies napped and Todd took them. They had a blast!

 I watched from the balcony. Sad I wasn't there but also glad I wasn't trying to wrangle 2 crazy twins on a ship that didn't allow strollers.

Other than that we didn't really do anything except beaching and swimming. Which is fine by me!

I was able to get some shots at sunset one night and they might be some of my favorite shots of all time.

 I looooove this one.

The trip home wasn't quite as easy as the drive down. Everyone was still good but we broke the drive up and stayed overnight in Decatur, Alabama, about 6 hours from home. We were pretty ready to be home and the hotel room was teeny. The babies didn't really have much to do other than play with the phone and jump on the bed.
The next morning no one wanted to get up. It was pretty cute considering they are usually such early risers.

 Of course Erin was up. Erin is always up :)

All in all the trip was really great. Exhausting but great. We can't wait to go back next year.