I'm an army wife, working mom of 2 kids.! My husband Tim is a Soldier In the army. I work for MWR for the Community Recreation Division as an admin assistant...I absolutely LOVE my job I couldn't have found anything better! My daughter, Kennedie, was born in January of 04 and our son, Cale, was born June of 09. Kennedie is VERY involved in dancing, she is in her 11th season (2019-2020) of being a competitive dancer. It's exhausting but we LOVE it. Cale is starting to REALLY get into sports. He is on a year round wrestling team, and he plays baseball in the spring! This blog started out as a recipe sharing venture but now it's going to turn into a more "granola" way to live. Cheap recipes more homemade recipes and re-purposing things. I'm a crafter at heart so I'm going to throw some of that in there too! On Valentines Day of 2017 we bought our first Travel Trailer. I'll be documenting our travels also on this blog!
We came home from Vegas at 645 Saturday morning, and we headed to Gulf Shores by 1pm! It's a 4 and a half hour drive from our house. We typically go toward the Destin/Fort Walton Beach area of the gulf shore, so this was our first time on the Bama side of the gulf. Our good friends own a condo down there and this was our first time to be able to check it out!
Because it was October when we went, it wasn't blazing hot but it wasn't perfect beach weather either. It was a little chilly. (or chilly by Southern standards)
Their condo is right near the beach, they have a great view of it as well!
Their condo is in the building on the left right above the guy in the grey hoodies head, which his ear is right where the actual condo is!
We were so exhausted from all the traveling but it was SO worth it!
Saturday morning it wasn't as gloomy as the night before. All the boys got in the water. I don't mind the beach water but it was a little too cold for me!
In the distance you can see the oil rigs, Cale said "next time we come we should stay at one of those water hotels" we all died laughing!
Almost everyone in their condo's has a beach view!
He loves being buried!
I enjoyed getting to read more of my book!
I don't know what I was trying to catch him doing, but he caught me and gave me a face!
We washed up and the the owners needed to make a run to home depot for renovation supplies so we made a quick stop at the outlets and the guys went on to home depot. (the couple that owns it uses one week in the off season to clean, update, renovate the condo for the next season - we visited them when they were just starting their projects)
She truly is my discount and deal finding shopping buddy!! We got some great stuff!
The guys picked us up sooner than we wanted them to, so we made them sit in the back with the new tools and flooring!
After dinner we went and walked along the beach to hunt ghost crabs.
You can kinda see the little ghost crab. We didn't keep them but Cale had a great time catching and releasing.
Dang he let me get close!
All the little skitter marks the crabs make going to hide!
We bought phase 10 at Walmart and taught Cale how to play. It's a cut throat game when you play with me!
They played their hand together. Cale held the "phase" and Lisa held the discards.
We kept joking that because they were playing fair and not nasty, that God was on their side with the cards they kept getting! Every time they had a hand full of wilds!!!
We celebrated our anniversary by going to Longhorn steakhouse Friday night.
The kids were out of school Friday, and Tim was off. So he took them to his gym and to lunch. They showed up at work with these pretty things for my present. He let the kids pick them out too. So nice!
Tim excited for his steak.
I had the cheesy garlic Parmesan chicken. It was SO good!!!
Saturday morning I finished packing up the trailer. I had to put back in all the essentials that we normally don't have to take out until the end of the season!
Tim took the kids back to the gym Saturday morning, then I swung by and picked them up to go see Aladdin!! It was a great movie with a GREAT soundtrack!
Saturday evening we had family dinner with the Ohana. The oldest "niece" is going off to the air force so we all gathered for a send off. I normally just give cash for these events, but I was DETERMINED to give her a lei like everyone else. But decided to make a bracelet because I need to be a little different. :) everyone loved it!
Sunday Morning:
We backed the truck up to the trailer and pulled out for Blue Springs State Park near Clio, AL.
I'm not sure why he decides to wear his joggers or some form of sweat pants ANY day in the summer.
We packed the kids new bikes and the dog in the back of the truck and off we went!
He didn't sleep well the night before. He was a TAD grouchy on the short drive.
I made him stop so I could use the bathroom - and I got him a snack because I needed his mood to perk up!
Crossing over to Alabama. This is the Chattahoochee River.
MADE IT! 745 Alabama time.
We found one of the only spots available at 8am and got everything set up. Loaded the truck to go to the water!
It was in the weirdest spot - we've never had to drive straight in on a circle. There was four spots up where we were. Two of the trailers were there permanently.
A little Keto snack at the water!
Kennedie already drawing! Mason taking a snooze!
Listening to my Audio-book!
1045 and there weren't a lot of people there.
Getting the grill ready!
I forgot to bring a spoon down for the beans - so he army'ed one out of tin foil!!
It was getting hot and Mason kept moving around to find more shade!
You know when you just wanna punch out your spouse? We laughed at this picture! He even offered to cover my double chin with his fist!
We cooled off in the trailer for a bit. We had a slight problem, we somehow got hooked up to a 20 amp site, we have a 30 amp trailer. We kept tripping the breaker until we realized. If we wanted to keep the air going we had to put it on auto and at 74 degrees, and all the interior lights had to be out. I was worried for when we wanted to pop popcorn and watch a movie later. It ended up not being an issue and we just had to be very careful with what we turned on. But once we realized the problem it didn't trip again!
He was cracking me up - even in a small 22ft trailer he can find a way to hide and be by himself!
It started to cool off a bit outside as the sun was going down and we had some good shade in our neck of the woods. So the kids got their new bikes out for a spin!
We got the kids new bikes because they are old enough to ride the mile and a half to the library this summer to enjoy the summer reading program activities. They haven't had bikes in 3 years since we live down a dirt road and they weren't old enough to bike anywhere alone yet. But now that Kennedie is 15 and Cale will be 10 next weekend we are confident they will be OK by themselves in our small town.
Because they haven't had bikes in 3 years Cale was 6 when he had his last bike and it had training wheels. So he had to learn how to ride! He did great within an hour or so he was pretty good at it!
Popped some popcorn and popped in a movie.
Tim wanted to listen to music - so he had to borrow my ear buds. I thought it was funny he was wearing gold and pink Lilly earbuds!
Cale had a little wipe out while riding his bike.
Enjoying the night.
We also didn't get a fire ring with our spot - so we made s'mores in the griddle.
Kennedie said they tasted great! She went back inside a little while later and made more all by herself and she was proud.
Round two of popcorn.
Round two of s'mores. He just likes the marshmallows and graham crackers.
Tim fell asleep before the rest of us - sent Cale in while we were putting up the stuff from outside. Joker stole my spot on the bed.
Monday Morning:
This was our area - at noon the day before we saw that our favorite spot #20 was available. We were SO close to moving - but we stayed - there was no traffic up here at the top of the campground and it was nice when Cale was learning how to ride his bike.
Making breakfast.
Cleaning up the camper and getting everything ready to leave. We decided to go dump the tanks first thing before there was a line like there was last holiday weekend.
Because of the angle of our trailer we had to angle the truck to the hitch. One try and we were good to go - I was pretty proud of myself for guiding him back at an angle.
I think I have a sunscreen problem. We take sun protection seriously! Clearly these always go to the bottom of the bag and I don't check before I drop another one in.
We didn't get "our spot" Monday morning, so we were in another spot. We headed out once it started to get filled up in the water.
I hope everyone's holiday weekend was fun and full of thankfulness of the lives that were lost for our freedom!
