Panama City Beach - Day 2

One thing that I did not think of about going to the Gulf (as opposed to the Atlantic when we went to Ormond Beach) was the fact that we would be dealing with a time change (one hour behind our normal time).  Now that our kids are older, time changes aren't that big of a deal for us anymore.  We talked about it on the way down, and decided we would just adapt to the new time and not try to stay on "home" time.  Well.  The one way that didn't work for us??  Morning time.  I kid you not - our children were up at 4:50 the next morning.  LL woke up, wanted to come see us, so she decided to *wake Cooper up and tell him where she was going**.  I'll let that sink in for a minute.  The outcome of that was both of them, walking down the stairs hand-in-hand (that part actually was kind of cute) at 4:50 in the morning.  We tried giving them an ipad to watch a movie on in the living room (which was right next to the room Matt and I stayed in), but that didn't work out well.  I ended up getting up with them and keeping them quiet in the living room while everyone else slept.  Laura and Gino were on the second floor (where Cooper and LL slept), and Ben was on the third floor, so luckily the kids didn't disturb anyone else!

At a more reasonable hour (read: 8:00 am), we all hit the beach for hours of fun!

I am so in love with this picture of the cousins.  If only my camera hadn't been fogging up because of the temp difference between the house and the beach.  Other than that - it's perfect!

We all played in the water, looked for sea shells, and built sandcastles!  The good thing was, we had one more adult than kid - so everyone else grabbed a child and decided to go farther out, and I got to stay behind and take pictures.  I'm not a huge fan of the ocean (like actually being in it), so this was fine with me!

Cooper literally loves just playing in the shallow waves.  He sits in them, jumps over them, lets them knock him over, runs into them, etc.  It's his favorite thing to do at the beach!

The big kids love it, too!

My best girl!  She has gotten so tall this summer!

Hunting sea shells!

Matt built a castle that Ben enjoyed destroying when it was time to leave.  That's the best part, right?  :)

Two of my favorite humans!  ;)

I sure love this guy!

The best part about taking a trip with other people?  Having someone there to take a family picture for you - haha.

Ben wanted in our picture, so we decided to poke him in the side and lean on his head.  Because we're an awesome Aunt and Uncle.

Such a good picture!  The water was gorgeous!

The kids decided to try their hand at making their own sand castle.

My sister is truly my best friend.  I am so happy that she's living in town for a short while so that we can spend so much more time together than we're used to!

So here comes the funny part of the day.  I am not a huge ocean person.  I love to be at the beach.  I don't love to be in the water.  There are just too many living things that can be around that I can't even see.  I just don't trust the ocean.  Well.  This trip, the water was so clear, and so shallow for a very long time, that I told myself to get over it and have fun!  So I did!  My sis and I went out pretty far to ride the boogie board, and we had a blast.  As I was walking in (from chest deep water), I got to about calf deep water and bam!  Lots of pain!  I screamed and ran to Matt who was about 6 feet away.  Want to know what happened?  I got pinched.  By a crab.  On my toe.  Which doesn't sound that painful, but it really was!  It was a hard enough pinch that my toe was dripping blood!  More than anything, though, it just scared the crap out of me - haha.

I got to sit next to this guy on our lunch break!

LL spent so much time hunting for and playing with sea cucumbers.  It was the highlight of her trip for sure!

This was my last vacation of the summer with this stud!

My crab injury - all cleaned up.

We walked back to the house a little after lunch time for nap and rest time.  I knew that Cooper would need a nap before Ben's birthday afternoon got kicked off!

After nap, we headed out to do one of Ben's favorite things: mini golf!  We went to Coconut Creek - they had a lot of different things to offer!  If it hadn't been so crazy hot, we would have done the huge maze that they had.  But since it was five million degrees, we decided to just stick with one round of golf.

I was proud of both of my kids!  Instead of just wildly hitting the ball like crazy people (like they usually do), the both slowed down and really tried hard this time.  And they did great!

My best girl!

Both boys got a hole-in-one on the same hole!

LL surprised us all by getting a hole-in-one, too!

My babies!

My whole world in one, happy picture.

We were all extremely surprised when LL got her SECOND hole-in-one!

I didn't play (I never do), and my job was to help the kids and take pictures.  I'm a pro at that.  :)

My handsome boy!  He was as happy as can be - playing golf (his fav), outside (his fav), and decked out in blue (his fav).

After mini-golf, we headed back to the house for pizza (Ben's choice).  On the way back, Matt really wanted to drive down the strip (instead of taking the faster, back way that we had been going).  It was actually pretty fun to see all the stuff, and it for sure made for some interesting people watching!  We passed this guy - on a hover board with a parrot on each shoulder.

Laura decorated during nap time, and we were all ready for Ben's Angry Bird party when we got back from golf.  Check out this awesome cake!!

Party time!

Being 4 isn't easy.  Sometimes you just take a picture anyway - haha.

I'm not usually an uber-excited person, but sometimes I can get it going.  ;)

He got a blue Angry Bird, so he was happy again.

After pizza and cake, it was time for a little "pin the tale on the Angry Bird".

That's a wrap for Ben's birthday celebration at the beach!  Up next: our last full day at the beach (and last full day of summer).  If you missed the first day of our vacation, you can read about it HERE.