Ah Summer…

The weather has been crazy this winter and so we are already planning our beach vacation for the summer.  Silly, maybe, but it’s getting me through these long, dreary, days!

I’ll hurry and wrap up our trip to Pensacola beach.  Most of the week we hung out at the beach and the pool.  We had great weather just about every day.  There was one day where we spent a good portion of the day driving down to other popular beach towns just to give our skin some rest from the sun.  We had scheduled professional family photos while in the area and we didn’t want to look like crabs fresh from the ocean!

Let me stop here and give a huge shout out for the condo we stayed in.  Our good friend Will B. recommended it as somewhere his parents had stayed recently and it was very economical.  The pictures on the website don’t do it justice.  It was much roomier than we thought and it was plenty of room for our family of four with one bedroom and a pull out couch.  My biggest concern was whether it was “ON” the beach.   So many hotels and condos say they are “on” the beach and it really means they are really close, across the street from, near a public part of or 300 years from the beach.  But this place was ON.  THE.  BEACH.  As a condo, it was in a building several floors high, but we were located on the 4th floor.  The owner has a reserved parking spot in the covered garage which meant our black truck was always cool and the spot was literally about 5 steps away from the elevator.  Once on the 4th floor, the elevator doors opened and about 3 steps away was the front door of the condo.  The beach walkway was probably 50 yards long.  It was HEAVEN.  I can highly recommend!

There was one day where Jenna and I went parasailing.  We debated on renting a pontoon boat but we passed on that idea.  Jenna really wanted to do a jet ski but we decided to parasail instead.  It was not Jenna’s first trip up, nor mine.  And I had a wrist camera they gave me where photos were taken just seconds apart the entire time we were up there.  Since I didn’t take my laptop, all of them are loaded on Steve’s PC…I’ll try to load them up later for some laughs.

But we did find a photographer who was reasonable and available the time we were there.  We ended up using Savanna’s Studio.  The weather for the day we selected was perfect and it was even a good hair day (to start with) for me.

The problem was that Kylie was not enthused.  We managed to get some decent shots but the pics would have been oh so much cuter if Kylie had be the normal happy girl she usually is.  She did great on the car ride down (which given her meltdowns surrounding being in a car seat was a miracle) and back and she loved the beach.  Restaurants and photos weren’t always easy.  Of course, this was the first “big” trip she’d been on since she had been home so I am sure some of her behavior was just her being out of sorts.

I was determined we were NOT going to do matching khaki and white.  I wanted COLOR.  I think we ended up coordinating pretty well.  And I got the color I was after.  That’s part of the reason I chose Savanna’s Studio was their spectacular use of color.  I didn’t want to be washed out into the background of the ocean.  And they did not disappoint!  Here are a few of the better shots.  And trust me…I had no trouble spending a ridiculous amount of money on the ones we did get.  I’m a sucker that way.  And if you need a photographer in that area, check out Savanna’s Studio!  You’ll be pleased, I promise!

This one of Jenna was one of my favorites.  There were some pretty corny shots but this is the most genuine of them all.

Don’t be fooled.  She is smiling, but just a little.  And just because we were letting her do whatever the heck she wanted.

What you can’t see in this one is the reason why Kylie was ticked. There was a bright pink stuffed monkey (hereinafter dubbed “pink monkey”, not to be confused with “green monkey”, “blue monkey”, “purple monkey” or “red monkey”) that we’d just bought her (and which started the monkey craze) that we refused to let be in the photos.  The dang monkey had a freakin’ eye patch!  But yes, the thing not only made most of the photos, but was toted everywhere from that point on.  She is her mother’s daughter (and so is Jenna) when it comes to stuffed animals.  Also notice the broken sail on the little boat?  That was a prop of the photographer and yeah it took Kylie about 3.2356 seconds to break it.  Fabulous.

At least it’s not a scowl but this was still early on and Kylie was not happy.

Yep, so my hair is blown all the heck and Steve’s back is about to break and if you look closely, Kylie has a big handful of my hair in her hand.  But she’s got a small grin, so this made the cut.

And this one pretty much sums up the whole experience.  Katie is just thrilled to be in the picture and basically thought it was playtime in the sand.  I’m all hunched over, hair blowing across my face and my breasts nearly hanging out of my shirt thanks to Kylie.  Kylie scowling at Katie for even thinking about having a good time.  Steve looks like he’s about to cry or laugh, who knows which and then Jenna who amongst all the chaos was managing to pose like a dang model.  Sigh.  This is the story of my life summed up in one photo.

But it was a good time and we were able to laugh about it later.  Like, much later.  As in, when I saw for myself that we did get several good shots.  And in the end, I’d do it again.  All of it.