Hey guys! We have been back from our trip for 3 weeks now, but I feel like I am just getting caught up! We were home one week then it was spring break, then the next week was catching up from spring break, so I am just now getting around to some recap posts from our trip. Let’s dive in to part one!
We left on a Saturday. Emma Kate had a basketball game that morning, and we had not yet told her about the trip. She spent the night at her grandmothers house the night before so Bobby and I could pack the car. We got up early to load everything up and then went to pick her up and told her we were going to the beach after her game. (We didn’t tell her about Disney.) She was so excited! She played great in her game and then we left right after and headed south. Our first stop was the Hilton Garden Inn at Fort Walton Beach. I’m not going to post a ton of photos because I did a whole blog post on the hotel.
We arrived in the late afternoon, and were pretty hungry, so after we got checked in and I took photos and videos of the room, we headed right down the street to dinner.
I really don’t even remember the name of the restaurant, it was just ok. Service was slow and all the food was fried (no option to get most things grilled so that was weird.) But we were so tired from driving we just went with it.
The next day we were pumped to explore the pool and beach. I stepped out on the balcony…and couldn’t even see the water it was so foggy (and cold!) It was “supposed” to clear up later but you know how that goes sometimes.
We hung out in the room until the fog lifted, but it was still chilly and cloudy. Oh well, to the pool we went! It was heated but still too chilly for me. Emma Kate however didn’t seem to care. We hung at the pool for a bit and the sun started coming out, hooray!
We made our way down to the beach and it did warm up some, and we ended up getting SO sunburned (not EK, I had put some on her face and she was wearing a rash guard.) I felt So dumb. I know better! But it was so cloudy and chilly I didn’t even think about it. We were so mad at ourselves and miserable for a couple days after from the pain!
We ended up back at the pool after playing at the beach, and it was the perfect temperature. Bobby wanted crab legs for dinner, so we found a place nearby (I want to say AJ’s?) and ate outside on their patio. We were so sunburned and tired we didn’t feel like going far so it worked out perfectly.
Our plan for the next day was to get up and drive to St. Pete Beach to make it to TradeWinds. However, I started looking at our route and realized if we left at 8 or 9, it would have us right in the middle of Tampa rush hour getting to St. Pete Beach. Having lived in Tampa, we know how bad that can be. So, we made the decision to get up at 5:00 and leave. (Bobby wasn’t thrilled about it at the time but was later thankful!) We already had everything packed the night before so we were out the door by 5:30 and on the road. This put us at the hotel around 3:30/4:00 and we were able to enjoy the beach a bit! More on that on the next post, stay tuned!
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