Destin Trip April 21-May 1

After my last day of work on April 20th, Joseph and I packed up for a fun trip to Destin, FL with my parents. We had a free roundtrip ticket on Southwest that expired in early May, and with no other travel plans in the works, I realized that we could fly down for free and drive back with them at the end of the month. My parents had been in Destin for most of the month of April (they left right after Easter) and had a sort of open-ended plan for their return, so that if we felt like staying longer or shorter, we could.

Although our flight was early Saturday morning, Joseph did great! We managed to score the first row seats, and although we had two stops, we never changed planes, which I was a little nervous about. I made sure to have plenty of games, books and the always popular ipad to keep him entertained, along with lunch since our flights lasted over 5 hours, and not being able to get off the plane for food would have been an issue.

We arrived in Destin to our only seriously rainy day for the trip, which wasn't that big of a deal since we didn't make it to the condo until after 2pm. We spent the first few days of the vacation hanging out, relaxing and enjoying a couple days with Papa, before he had to leave for a business trip to New Orleans.

While Joseph loves all of his grandparents, grandpas are definitely his favorite. It's really funny, though, how he'll go from wanting no one but Papa to hold him or play with him, until the minute Papa isn't available, and then the next most favorite person on the list moves into the #1 position. Not quite an out of sight, out of mind mentality; rather, he makes sure that someone is always the best choice to dote on him. In this case, Mimi became his #1 while Papa was gone. They had lots of fun playing together, and Mimi didn't have any issues spoiling him. She brought home this enormous rice crispy treat from the donut shop one morning, and let him have it after his nap. 

He was kind enough to take a few bites of the sprinkled section, and then offer Mimi the smallest of bites.

 Somehow it turned into a game of giving kisses, and Joseph didn't mind playing along. Especially when Mimi makes all sorts of fun sounds and gestures after receiving a kiss from the little guy.

 Eventually she managed to steal a few (kisses, that is, not bites) and he thought that was quite a bit of fun as well.

 We had all sorts of new fun experiences in Destin during this trip. Joseph loved helping to take the dogs for their walks, and always pointed out the big trucks and "buses" that came down the road. Eventually I realized that the county bus system stopped in front of the condo, so one morning Mimi and Joseph boarded the bus (which was basically an airport shuttle style bus) and I caught them at the end of my morning run, a few stops down the road. For $1 per adult, we got to spend a hour making the round-trip loop down the beach and US 98 Highway, over to Okaloosa Island and back. Joseph had tons of fun and couldn't stop talking about riding the bus!

The pool was a little too chilly to swim, and Joseph wasn't really ready to run into the ocean, which was also a little cold, so we spent more time playing in the hot tub than anything. It took us almost half a week to even convince Joseph to walk on the beach, and once he did, he always wanted to be down there instead. We had our first hermit crab races, and he wasn't scared at all of the hermit crabs. Instead, he had more fun picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean, so our races were a little fixed. His always made it back to the ocean before mine!

Mimi also made sure to make bathtime as fun as possible, which isn't hard considering the gigantic bathtub in their master bedroom. While it is jetted, they don't use the jets because they scare Joseph. It didn't stop him from playing with the knobs and generally trying to cause trouble, while sinking his boats and other bath toys.

 Wearing the hat of the little man in his hand. It's a good look, right? 

One of the best places to eat in Destin is Dewey Destin's, which has two restaurants, one on the bay and one in the harbor. We ate dinner at the harbor restaurant our first night, and then at the one on the bay a few days later. It's basically a shack built right over the water, and the kitchen is actually run inside a trailer in the parking lot, but they serve some of the best seafood in all of Destin! Because the tables are on piers over the water, Joseph had fun watching the fish swim below while we waited for our food.

 Lots of seagulls hang out nearby as well, despite the signs asking patrons to not feed the birds. Joseph loved pointing them and the passing boats out to us.

And playing the kissing game with Mimi. That's always a favorite!

One of the other big firsts for us this trip was that Joseph slept in a big boy bed for the whole trip! He's really too tall for the pack-n-play (although he's still never tried to climb out of one), and since the condo has a room with bunk beds and little else, we opted to add a bed rail and see how he'd do. And he passed with flying colors! I snapped this picture right after he woke up from a nap, so he looks a little out of it, but he was generally pretty happy about being in the bed. At the beginning of the trip, I told him he needed to stay in bed and call out for one of us to get him  when he woke, and about half of the time it worked! We put a toddler child lock on the doorknob that he never figured out, so even when he did get out, he'd just sit on the rug and wait.

The best part is that when we returned home, he was fine with sleeping in his crib again! He is so easy to please, it's wonderful.

I remembered a Thanksgiving trip a few years back when James was a little over 2 years old, and how he loved playing with playdoh. I picked some up, thinking it could be a fun experience, and Joseph loved it! It took a bit for us to teach him how to play with it, but it quickly took priority, even over his trains. It came in really handy to keep him entertained while we made dinner or worked on cleaning things up.

Papa returned from New Orleans at the end of the week, and Joseph was thrilled to have him back. They spent a lot of time catching up on playing trains together.

 Joseph also got more comfortable playing with Maggie and Sadie, and would frequently grab a tennis ball or other dog toy and try to get the dogs to play with him. Maggie didn't take the hint this time, as she was quite comfortable on the lounge chair!

We had absolutely beautiful weather for the last weekend, and spent lots of time playing outside. The condo has tons of sand toys, and Joseph could have spent all day outside digging, building and destroying the sand castles he and Papa built.

Eventually Papa decided to start playing tricks on Joseph, and would bury his toes, then feet and fling them out of the sand when Joseph wasn't expecting it. Or he'd start digging with the toys by holding them in his toes, not hands. Silly Papa!

My parents brought one of their tandem sailing kayaks down to leave in Florida, and Joseph and I went out with Papa one afternoon. Joseph loved it! He sat in my lap and we sailed down the pass, under the bridge, and around the harbor before it was time to head in for dinner. He kept talking about going on Papa's boat for days afterward.

On Sunday we took Papa to the airport to fly home, and my mom and I had planned to stay down through Wednesday or Thursday of the week. However, an unexpected death in the family had us making arrangements to leave a few days earlier, so we packed up and hit the road for St. Louis on Tuesday. Although we weren't able to stay as long as we had originally planned, it was still a great trip, super relaxing after 2 months of being a working mom! It'll be interesting knowing that the next time we're down in Florida, there will be 2 kids in tow!