The Beach

A couple weeks ago we were very lucky to take some time away from work and head down to the beach with my family....PCB 2010, Whoo Hoo!!!! The last time I was in Panama City was Spring Break of 1997.....my freshman year of college. One of my best friends, Tracey, and I headed down for a very interesting time, to say the least. We remember most of it. Thankfully we bought some airbrushed t-shirts, with plenty of scrawled phrases that don't even ring a bell to us now, haha.
Needless to say, I remember all of this most recent trip, even without the airbrush tee, and it was wonderful. The weather was perfect, no oil in the water or on the beach, perfect temperature with a nice breeze.....plus a really, really nice condo to stay in while we were there (thanks to my sister doing the research and booking this place for us).

I LOVE the beach. I don't really like getting all in the ocean so much (the edge is just fine with me), but being right near the water, lounging on a chair and soaking in the sun with the sounds of the waves crashing, with an occasional walk at the waters' edge....I could just do that forever. Which reminds me that if this is your plan, you'll need to put on sunscreen thick and often. Maybe it was because it wasn't so scorching hot, or maybe the wind was just a tad more than a gentle breeze, or maybe because it is true about pregnant women having more sensitive skin.....but my couple of applications of SPF 30 didn't quite do the trick....I got pretty burnt. I wasn't the only one, Michael looked like a splotchy lobster too. We didn't let it ruin our trip for one minute, we just upped the SPF to 50 and made sure to lounge in more shady spots (like under the umbrella).

I was really very sad to leave when we had to....I could easily live at the beach and hopefully one day Michael and I can retire to a nice condo on the beach.

Here are some pictures from the trip....can't wait to go back....next time we'll have a new family member to bring with us!! :-)

View from condo

Michael and I on the balcony

Sara and IDillon and ICoop & Max
Coop and his best buddy Uncle Michael on the train
Chip & Gus New pals!

I wanted some of these mini turtles SO bad. But apparently they are near death to the pregnant woman (I guess you can get salmonella easily from them or something) so I had to talk my parents into letting Dillon get a couple....for me to be around them I have to have supervised visits and can't touch them at all. Better than nothing and you can bet this will be the first pet my own child will have....after the risk of salmonella is gone, of course. They are SO adorable.

My hubby and I, relaxed and happy on vacation. :-)

With the exception of it just not being long enough, this trip to PCB was really fun and wonderful and I am so glad that we had the chance to spend some good quality time with my family. It will probably be a while until we get to go back to the beach (hopefully not more than a year, I am sure the baby will love the beach as much as we do when she finally gets here) so I am happy this trip was filled with great memories!