Our summer vacation

My baby boy turned 3yo this weekend. We celebrated by taking him to his 1st trip to the beach in Panama City, FL. If there is a word that means excited multiplied by 10 that might come close to describing how Ben reacted. It couldn't have been a more perfect vacation!

We arrived at our hotel room at about 4pm. This was the view from our balcony!


We unloaded our luggage, changed into our swimsuits and headed straight for the beach! Here's a slide show of Ben's 1st day on the beach. (you can run your mouse over an image to pause it and read the caption)

Another highlight for Ben was cable television in our hotel room....the Cartoon Network!


That evening we went out to eat at Sharkie's so Tim could enjoy some raw oysters and beer. Then back to the hotel room to settle in for the night. While enjoying the sunset from the balcony I watched a couple get married on the beach. I guess it's the hormones, but I got misty eyed. It was so romantic. Tim, of course, made fun of me....especially when I took a picture.


Isn't this sunset spectacular?!




The next day was Ben's birthday.


Ben woke up immediately requesting to go swimming! So at 9:30am we headed to the beach. The entire day was spent at either the beach or the pool. (mom's and dad's will be proud to know that I was a very smart girl with my sunscreen! Tim on the otherhand got a red belly, but I'm sure it be dark brown by tomorrow.) One of the funniest things to me was we fed some grapes to the seagulls, so Ben starting squaking like a seagull to get grapes. He did a pretty good imitation! After a refreshing nap we headed out to eat. Ben got a nice Oreo cookie ice cream cake with a candle as we sang Happy Birthday to him at the restaurant. After a very yummy meal we took a nice walk on the beach.

I LOVE this picture of Ben dancing on the beach!


Here we are looking for shells...


Found one Mommy!


After our walk we took another dip in the pool. Gotta love a heated pool at 9 o'clock at night! Then we took showers and cuddled in the bed for some cartoons before falling asleep.

Aren't they sweet?



The next morning we packed up and headed home. Even though it was a short trip, it was completely worth it! We had such a great time and can see making this a yearly tradition.