Gulf Shores Adventure: Day 3

We hid the clock from Jenna’s line-of-sight and surprisingly she slept until almost 9, so our day had a later start than we expected (though Aaron and I were quite happy to get to sleep in!). We went down for breakfast. It was very crowded, but we all found something to eat and a place to sit. Jenna lucked out as all of their food except cereal and yogurt were too accessible to everyone for our comfort, so we let her pick whatever kind of cereal she wanted; “colorful cheerios” was her choice.

After breakfast we decided to drive around a bit to see if we could find any attractions that sounded fun. We drove through Orange Beach and down the short well into Gulf Shores and beyond. Mostly we saw lots of condos, but the farther we drove the more beach houses we saw. They sure looked like nice places to live, though I’m not sure that any were permanent residences. I didn’t get any pictures, but most of the houses were named and many were painted with bright beachy colors. We came to the end of the road and turned around and decided to drive the other direction from our hotel, where we saw many more condos and found out that Florida was only a couple miles away. I knew it was close, but thought it was 15 miles or so. So, Jenna was able to add Florida to her list of states. We turned around and headed back to Alabama. The main attractions in Gulf Shores are on a road that runs perpendicular to the beach, so we headed down that road to see what we could see. We were thinking mini-golf sounded fun, but Jenna said she really doesn’t like it and we didn’t want to fight her because it was obvious that she wasn’t interested because all she wanted to do was get back to the hotel to swim and visit the beach. So, we decided to find a place for lunch. We had a coupon for a restaurant that was on the canal. The online reviews were good, so we found it. But, it turned out to be a hole-in-the-wall type place, which just isn’t our thing, so we moved on to Plan B, which was a beach shack near our hotel called Bahama Bob’s. We showed up and knew we had found the right place. We were seated in a nice outdoor booth with an ocean view and were greeted by a sweet middle-aged waitress with such a thick Alabama drawl that we had trouble understanding each other!

The food was a bit pricey for a beach shack, but everything was so delicious that we didn’t mind. Aaron and Jenna both ordered burgers(at a seafood shack!!) and I ordered coconut shrimp. It was definitely some of the best coconut shrimp I’ve ever had and Aaron said that his burger was amazing (so perhaps it wasn’t such a faux pas to order a burger at a seafood joint).

 

Jenna was mostly interested in her milk…

After we were stuffed, we decided to go to a surf shop to find some T-shirts. We didn’t care much for the prices, so we didn’t get any shirts, but we did let Jenna pick out a souvenir.  In typical 3 year old fashion, she found the container filled with colorful rocks and set to filling up her small bag that proudly claimed to be from Gulf Shores. I always hate paying for rocks, but I definitely love how they can stimulate imagination like nothing else. Just on the remainder of our trip we spent a lot of time having rock stores and taking turns buying or selling. We counted rocks, talked about all the colors, played hide and seek, and much more. As we were about to check out we noticed that they had some really good prices on kids’ swimming items, so we bought Jenna a pair of goggles  and water wings. These only made her more excited to get back to the hotel to swim, so we checked out and headed back to the room where she and Aaron promptly fell asleep! I headed out to the balcony and read, though I probably should have napped since I fell asleep that evening before 9!

After their rests, we hit the beach to build a sandcastle and bury Jenna in the sand (also something she had been looking forward to doing). She kept moving as soon as I started to take a picture of her, but I finally got this shot.

The sandcastle was all Jenna and Daddy. I sat in a beach chair and took in the sea breeze until it was time for pictures.

Jenna was most excited to go ‘Jenn zilla’ on the castle

After the beach, we went to the pool (and took no pictures!). Jenna was very excited to try her goggles. It was pretty amazing how quickly she started putting her entire head underwater, floating, and swimming. Who knew that the goggles would make such a difference! She did wear the water wings for a while, but when she got her ‘five minute warning’ that it was time to go, she told Aaron to take them off because she wanted to swim by herself. She would push off his legs and swim about 8 or 10 feet to the pool stairs (she had been doing this with the water wings).

After swimming, we went back to the room and as I mentioned, I fell asleep before 9. I think Jenna fell asleep around the same time. Aaron tried to stay awake until after 10 and I believe he got sucked into various Discovery Channel reality shows.