I kicked off summer break with a trip to the beach with my Mom and the Lyons crew.
The very day that school got out, Mom came to my house and picked me up and we made our way to Orange Beach. We did this last year and had the best time so, here we were again. For the first three days, it was just Mom and I as MC works on the weekends and they weren't able to come until Monday.
We had our annual crab legs and they were worth the wait! This is something we have been doing when at the beach for over a decade now. We used to go to the beach as a family and it always fell on my birthday week and to celebrate, we would get crab legs as a family one of the nights we were there. So, not only is it nostalgic, it is delicious.
Our morning routine of coffee on the balcony. May beach weather is so nice. It's not too hot and it's my new favorite time to go. We always went end of July and it was scorching--we had no idea it was so nice in May.
Mom and I made some fresh mocktails to save on calories during the week. I'm going to share our favorite recipes at the end. They were so good! We also got a brumate mug and it was the PERFECT beach cup. Kept our drinks cold all day long. We used the 16oz Toddy mugs-check them out here. Obviously we didn't have them in my picture above. We tried using the plastic cup and realized quickly that wasn't going to work for all day beach days.
I finallllly read "Where The Crawdad Sings"--I was trying to beat the movie--and it was worth the wait. It was such a good book! I enjoyed the details of the "marsh girl" and the story of how she became that way and all that she had to overcome. I really loved the mystery inserted in there as well. A very, very well done book.
I mean, you can't go to the OBA/Foley area without going to Culver's. You think "it's just another place"...it's not.
The Lyons crew made it down on Monday and Annie girl was beach ready! She wanted to start her mornings on the balcony playing "ships" with Mimi and Aunt Ellen. She is absolutely a beach girl.
We also got to play Candyland (well, 3/4 of it) and GuessWho with her. She was very interested. Even when she wanted to make her own rules to it--LOL!
Looking at out the beach for day 1! Bennett was there with us last year but, he was so little and wasn't even mobile let. This was his first year that he was able to walk around and actually explore and experience beach life. We weren't sure what he would think!
This girl wakes up ready to get out there. She loves it!
We found out pretty quickly that Bennett likes the beach as long as he has a snack down there...and honestly, me too.
With MC being 33 weeks pregnant, it was all hands on deck! Our 2:1 ratio was just what was needed ;)
Mom was cracking me up all week. She and I would read on the beach so she needed her readers, and her sunglass readers, and then her regular sunglasses for when she wasn't reading. At one point, they couldn't be found and well....you see where they were!
We had such a good time and I really love this trip. It's the perfect way to kick off my summer and I am thankful we are able to go and enjoy!
Mocktails that we tried throughout the week. I am simply sharing the links to the original website and I'm only sharing the ones that we liked the best ;)
We used all fresh fruit and low/no calorie sparkling toppers.
One thing we discovered was the FRE (alcohol removed wines). We tried the Rose and the Champagne and they both tasted just like their alcoholic versions and were fun to try out. We were able to get them from Rouses down there. Other than that, we used sparkling waters, etc.
One thing that we learned in our cocktail research is that you can use pickle juice in these drinks and it makes it taste like tequila is in there. We tried it out and honestly, it was so, so, good.
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