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Babies Rule!!
Jones

Easter Promise

Driving home tonight, my wife in the passenger seat reclines the seat, grabs the pillow, and excusing herself from further conversation says,"You can listen to the radio or call someone to talk if you want." Without thinking the first thought slamming through my brain was,"I just want to talk to Lance."...and the sting of death is still there. And some days hurt worse than others. And I'm so thankful for an empty grave and the Easter Promise of a risen Christ.

"O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
- 1 Corinthians 15:55-57

Gulf Shores: The Last Day (9)

Finally, our week of central time is over, this won't be fun waking up Monday morning.

Thanks Kristy for letting us borrow you SUV...who'd of thought a wife and kid had so much junk necessary items.

We stopped in Bowling Green, KY and Little J got his first swim sessions. The hotel was great, minus the employee that informed us halfway through breakfast that it wasn't complimentary. It was a nice place so we just assumed the toast was free, silly us.

Jones liked the water but along with toast being a high hotel expense, apparently heating the pool was too. He was content enough to let mom and dad sit in the hottub for 10 min too, which was much enjoyed. If any of you friends buy a hottub, we'll come sit in it with you.

GS: Friday day 8

Crazy, week's gone so fast. Today was pretty lazy, half-heartedly packing things we didn't want to wake up early to pack.

Ate supper at Nolan's which was one of the best dinner's out yet. Expensive but great food and quiet atmosphere.

Went for a walk on a pier around sunset which was great. Of course it cost $2, and we know I'm too cheap for that, so we didn't walk all the way down...got some good views anyway.

Dessert was Hope's Cheesecake which was pretty fabulous. Who wants to get on the scale when they get home, not this guy.

Jer

GS: Day 7 Thursday

Finally fish day. Fished with Action Charters and they did a pretty good job. Caught mostly small snapper and red snapper. I was one of maybe four people out of forty on the boat that got ahold of a red snapper, the much larger and stronger of the two. It took about 5 min to get him to the boat, they make a heavy action rod bend pretty good.

Got done with fishing and went out to the beach with the family. We're working on teaching Jones how to boogie board, he's getting pretty good on the sand, we'll see how he does in the surf.

Supper was at The Oyster Bar...I was pumped up for this restaurant, it wasn't quite as good as expected so kinda disappointing. Or maybe it was Maria glaring at the oysters all night.

Feet in the sand is always nice, too.

Jer

Gulf Shores Day 6: Wed.

I'm posting 2 day's later so I've forgotten most of what we did Wed., which probably means it was sleep in and lounge around. I think we ordered pizza for supper.

I know after supper we went to a boardwalk overlooking an inlet and walked around that, even got to see two alligators. This, of course, made Maria wonder aloud," If an alligator jumps out of the bushes and demands either me or Jones, who does Jeremy surrender??" We never came to a good conclusion.

We walked through Target looking for a fishing hat, tomorrow's the big fish charter!! Somehow we managed to find some things Maria needed to, thank you Target.

Turns out TCBY is also local and apparently the golden vanilla tastes just as good down here.

My loves

Tomorrow is our last day at Gulf Shores. It went so fast! This has been a week of total refreshment. Jones has been such a happy baby getting all of this loving from mom and dad all week. Here's a few of my favorites. We're so thankful to our Lord for this time. 

Maria

GS: Day 5...Tuesday

We had breakfast out today...it was kind of nice to just wake up and go get food and coffee. There's a really nice canal close that had a restaurant overlooking it. No boats moving but I find I like being close to water. Might be the landlubber in me.

Today was the beach day and much to Maria's dismay, Jones isn't interested in coating himself with oily cream, baking under a hot sun, and digging sand out of his shorts. Who's surprised? This is also the day I get weird tan lines and somehow burn on the back of my neck, side of my knees, and top of my feet. Great.

We did however find some interim Grandmas that insisted on babysitting for 5 minutes. It's strange because in high school and college I couldn't get girls on the beach to look twice at me. Add a kid to the equation and they're like the seagulls that know you have a loaf of bread, can't get them to leave you alone. I guess the only consolation is most of the women chasing me now, to get to Jones, are over 40.

It rained and Jones got to see his first double rainbow....it was pretty sweet seeing it over the Gulf.

Today kinda turned into a smaller version of our trip. Not much going on, and that's the plan. What separates this week from the rest of the year has been the chance to see my family all day long. It's great getting Jr. out of bed in the morning, he seems to be happy to see anyone when he wakes up. It's also different to have so much time to talk, connect, and see my wife.

Translation: Guys, come visit ASAP, need intervention!!

Just kidding, it's been really good. With our work schedules at home, we don't have time to just sit, drink coffee on the porch, and talk about life, feelings, raising kids, etc. It's also been good to do devotions together, since we often have life and scripture strike us differently.

Enough blogging, looks like live coverage from The Masters is on...


Jer

Breakfast time

 

Substitute Gma

Beach Bum

Jones in the morning

GS: Day 4

Here's the part of the trip where you lose track of which day of the week it is. Monday we think. With the storm yesterday and a little rain today there's some awesome waves for boogie boarding. Also waves where I swallow several gallons of water.

We ate breakfast in our condo which was great. At least we weren't wrestling Jr. in public. Got out to the beach early afternoon and met some people from Goshen, IN, small world. They of course wanted to hold the baby, everyone wants to babysit for 10 min.

Ate supper at DeSoto's. Shrimp was really good, pecan-encrusted fish was 80% pecan's I think. Jones got to try his first sweet potato and seemed to really like it. Maria was excited since they're healthy until the waitress informed her it was made "Grandma" style, lots of butter and sugar.

Jer

Lounging around.

More Lounging.

 

Boogie Boarding

 

Sweet Potato

GS: Day 3

Snapshots:

Sunday, Or better known as the lazy day.
Rained and stormed most of the morning.
Maria & Jones slept in.
Streamed into church for a little taste of back home.
Read some books, watched some golf.
Walk/jogged on the beach. Maria did at least. I'm on vacation so I might jog to the fridge.
Devotions on the porch swing.
Winn Dixie for groceries.
Supper at Shipp's Diner. Awesome seafood. Scoops ice cream on the way home.

J

 We love books, even if we don't understand.

 Grocery shopping with Dad & Mom.

Dinner on the Gulf at Shipps.

Gulf Shores: Day 2

We splurged a little on our hotel but it had awesome rooms and a great, hot breakfast. It was also the women's NCAA final four in Nashville so the price may have been a little inflated because of that. Jones slept good which means we did too.

Back on the road. It feels much better to be driving in the daylight with a good nights sleep and caffeine in the system. Tennessee is much more beautiful in daylight, except for the big cities...always drive thru big cities at night if you can, traffic's light and they're all lit up.

We ate at Zaxby's for lunch and hit the fast food jackpot. We'd recommend this to anyone traveling south. Jones was so glad to be out of his carseat, he stood on our laps the whole time and yelled at the rest of the patrons. Apparently it's cute for babies to yell in public, when did this become a social no-no for grown men??

Learning Moment. It appears that in Alabama there's a third light at some intersections that starts blinking like crazy if the light is red and you're not stopped. The wondering continues if this is just a warning light, or an intricate system designed to streamline traffic tickets to unsuspecting out-of-state travelers. I'm resting in ignorance, it feels better than a $200 ticket.

Finally arrived in GS and found our condo. There's three buildings, one on the beach side and two across the road with the pool...we're on the beach side. Also come to find out of the 20 or so condos in our building, we're 1 of 2 that has a balcony facing the gulf. Awesome. Views are great and you can hear the water hitting the beach.

We got unpacked and settled in. For Jeremy this means moving the car contents to the condo. For Maria this means emptying the suitcase into all the drawers, filling the bathroom with necessary "equipment", and setting up the kitchen as close to home as possible. Apparently it's called "nesting", I might get my suitcase unpacked by the time we leave, in which case the stuff I didn't use can just stay in the suitcase, resulting in energy saved!

Jer

 Why is miniature stuff so funny?

 Living room.

 Kitchen.

 Little J's private suite.

 Balcony west.

Balcony east.

 

 

Comfy PJ's.

 

"I wear my sunglasses at night..."

- Jones