Happy 4th from the Beach!

We had the pleasure of spending this entire week down at the beach with wonderful friends. Last Saturday, we drove down to 30-A and stayed in a little community called Cypress Dunes located in Santa Rosa Beach. The McGrath's and the Driskell's were kind enough to join us. It is so nice to have "travel friends". You know the difference. There are good friends that you love and can see every now and then, and then there are good friends you can "travel" with. Both of these couples fall under the "travel friends" category :) I planned out the entire week including meals (imagine that) and Dean didn't fuss a single time. I was so proud of him :) Here are a couple of things we did while down at the beach...


On Sunday night, we drove over to Sandestin to have a few baked oysters at Acme Oyster House. Thomas (who is a lifelong friend of Dean and Shawn) joined us along with his little girl, Avery. Thanks to Uncle Lucien, we had the best baked oysters ever AND we didn't have to wait for a table. Thanks Uncle Lou! After dinner we headed back to the house, so Avery and Felix could bake us some chocolate chip cookies for dessert. How much sugar did y'all put in those things?!?!?


On Monday night, we went over to Cantina Laredo to get some good ole' Mexican food. For those of you who have not been here, it is really good. It is a nice change of pace from seafood when you are down at the beach for a week. Kelly got into the 'riters (as us country folk say) and had herself a grand old time. We had just enough food and fun to get ourselves prepared for a night long Uno tournament. That El Gato seemed to come out again in full force, and we had to put him to bed early :)


We headed over to Bud and Alley's on Tuesday night for some rooftop drinks at sunset and then another fine meal. Our waitress was nice enough to take this group shot of all of us in front of the dunes :) The plan for after dinner to was to get some ice cream in Seaside, but the line was way TOO long...Blue Bell in the freezer worked just fine :)


As the week got closer to an end, the sadder we all got. We decided on Thursday night that we needed to take a family group shot before dinner ( we wanted to make sure Shawn still had his tooth-long story). Dean was not the most thrilled person in the world while taking these photos. I think he faked it pretty good though, don't you? We'll see if his opinion of a family photo shoot changes once "baby Megan" comes along :)



I have to admit that the trip ended with a bang. And I don't mean bang, as in fireworks. On the 4th, Dean's family was nice enough to invite us over for their annual 4th of July celebration in Destin. We went over to Sister and Henry's condo on the beach for a beautiful day out by the ocean and a massive 4th of July BBQ spread! I couldn't have felt more at home. They were such a nice Southern family and provided such wonderful hospitality. The Boston butt, hash brown casserole, and baked beans were all to die for! Nothing like a good ole Southern meal at the beach! Dean's birthday cake sure ended the meal off right. Who would've thought you could fit 40 candles on a cake? Somehow they managed.

We had such a great time on our trip. Thanks to these wonderful friends for joining us. We appreciate the memories and look forward to many more to come!