Thursday, January 2, 2014

Holidays are over-rated!!!!

 Merry Christmas from Panama City Beach, Florida!!!!!! =)


Awesome park at the Navy Station Marina!!!! =)
I wish you could hear the screams of delight!!!

For our family, anyway, holidays are way over-rated....my Army Man likes to downplay all the hoopla around the Christmas holidays!!! He would prefer we just have normal family time and forget the gift giving and shopping. Mainly the shopping.
For Christmas this year we decided to put an emphasis on family time!! Our little family of 5 went to a cabin near the beach for the week of Christmas!!
Our little cabin on St Andrew's Bay!!!!! 

 From the kitchen area....this is the living area and hall to the bedroom and a view of the loft!!


 The (fully furnished) kitchen area in our little cabin!!! 

The kids absolutely LOVED sleeping up here in this loft!!!! It was by far the best week away from home they have ever had!!! (Even with a sick mama and an evening waiting in the ER waiting room!!!)

 It was an ideal getaway for our family and we were so looking forward to our time here!!!
We drove down on Monday afternoon...by Monday evening I was not feeling well. By Tuesday (Christmas Eve) I had a fever and was in bed all day!!! Tuesday night Army Man took me to the ER...I had a fever of 104.5*!!!! Yikes!!! I also had Strep Throat. =(    I felt much better after a shot of penicillin and 2 liters of IV fluids!!  Christmas day was spent in bed listening to my children play with their tiny remote controlled cars!! Since we did not have shopping time (I was sick, in bed) we gave the kids $50 cash to spend however they wanted.  They say that was the best Christmas ever!!!  =)   They were so excited about that cash!!!
 Happy Dance!!!!!  =)


 By Thursday I was feeling much better and we took the kids to see The Hobbit, 2.... (as part of their Christmas)!!! They loved it!!! I love hearing them laugh out loud at movies....it just makes my day!! They had a great time and we had a wonderful family day together!!!



As part of our week we, of course, had to go to the beach!! It was only 2-ish miles away!!!! The weather was not ideal, but really, you just cannot improve on the beach. Cloudy, stormy, sunny, windy, empty... it is always beautiful at the beach!!!
 Racing down the deserted beach!!! Thrilling!!!


 I have no words for the beauty of the beach....



 They were trying to skip rocks (or maybe it was shells) on the water!!!  
I think it was about 55* on this day!!  Brrrrr.....too cold for me to be in that water!!!



This is a ship that we watched in the bay where our cabin was located....
...it sailed out of the bay while we were at the beach!!! SO very cool!!! =)


 This is the Bay where we were staying!!




On our last day here we let the kids play one more time on the very awesome playground!!  They had such a fun time!!! =)


All in all, I'd say our trip was a complete success!!! We had some very good times together as a family and may I just say, we had "The Talk" with all of our kids (dad with the boys and mom with the girl!) and it was not as bad as I thought it would be. We are a very openly affectionate family so it was easy to explain some aspects of loving.
"Practicing Love with Motions" has a whole new meaning for our kids and when we say it, even in jest, all of our kids make those gagging noises!!! So much fun to tease these kiddos!!!! =)

~~So here is to a new year of making moments count and making memories with your family!!!~~

Blessings!!!

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