It was a little last minute but we decided to work in one more family vacation before Matthew left. He loves the heat and the ocean so we decided to go with Gulf Shores.
We left on a Friday afternoon. The Torgerson’s were in Branson at Silver Dollar City so we drove to them and spent the evening with them and doing as many rides and roller coasters as we could. After we ended the night watching the drone/firework show (which was pretty cool) we stayed in a hotel near by and then left early the next morning to get to Gulf Shores.
We headed to the beach once we got to Gulf Shores, it was great weather and the waves were really nice, but unfortunately they were having one of their worst peak jellyfish seasons. It was a bit of a bummer. We played in the water a little bit, we all got a little sting here and there but Emilee got a pretty bad sting on her arm and neck. They were sea nettles which are not lethal but extremely painful. She was mad, frustrated, sad, and hurt all at once. After that we waded in the waves and stuck pretty close to the beach instead of the water. We played catch and enjoyed relaxing but we didn’t get to spend as much time on the beach as we hoped.
We spent the next few days relaxing and enjoying each others company. We went to the movies, a waterpark, played lots of games, Matthew, Ryan and Emilee went golfing, we swam in the pool, went shopping, did icee runs at the gas station and got ice cream at our usual spot. It used to be called Matt’s Ice Cream but they changed the name to Sweet Cone. We liked the first name better for obvious reasons.
We drove home on Allison’s birthday which isn’t very fun for her so we let her pick our activity the night before we left. She went with a 3D glow in the dark dinosaur miniature golf. It was pretty fun! I think Emilee lost but the score card showed that I lost.
We got home around 10pm on Allison’s birthday. Happy 15th birthday! Her presents were at Grandma Terry’s along with her guinea pigs so we stopped there first and brought them home with us so she could open them. Friday we did her birthday cake and she went swimming with a friend. Sunday we had more birthday cake with all the family in town-including Grandma and Grandpa Jones who were here to visit. And on Monday she went to brunch with some friends and then they hung out at our house for the day. So we spread it out over a few days but she still had some good birthday celebrating.
