Vacation Part 2... Finally...

Sooooo, you know in my last post when I said that I wouldn't take too long to post the rest of our trip??? Yeah, well I lied. Little did I know that as I was typing that last post, a vicious bug was taking over my body and would soon totally wipe me off of my feet. What I think started as a head cold, soon turned into a full blown sinus infection. And did I go to the doctor??? NOOoooOOOoo... Of course not. That would have been the smart thing to do. Instead, I thought I could "tough" it out. All I have to say is, being sick stinks, but it is really hard when you have a little one to take care of. Caroline was pretty much a feral child during the day and all operations under General Broussard's (that's me... if you had to ask, then you don't know me too well) command ceased (my house looks like a war zone). Thankfully, I have a wonderful husband who came home and took care of Caroline so that I could crawl in bed around 7:00 5 nights in a row. Yeah, I was that sick. You know I have to be sick to do that. Finally, after about a week of running a low-grade fever and having unbearable pain in my jaw/ear/nose, I finally broke down and asked my friend Darcy to call me an antibiotic in because I obvidously wasn't fighting that nasty bug too well on my own. I feel like a brand new woman today! I'm not quite back to full-speed, but I'm at least up and moving, which is more than I have been in the last 8 days.

Any way, on to happier items. So, Part 2 of our vacation, we headed to Florida. We got up early Monday morning and left Lafayette around 5:45 a.m. We made a stop in Pensacola to visit Mrs. Donna and Mr. Bill. They lived next door to Steven's family when they lived in Pensacola and they have kept in touch ever since.

Once we arrived in Destin, we set in to unpack and get settled. Once we did that, we were going to try to go to the beach, but a thunderstorm moved in and dumped on us. We totally did not mind though-it was SOOOOOO nice to see rain! (Yes, I realize how sad that is... It has been so long since we have seen rain that we don't even care if it shows up on our beach vacation)

The great thing about this vacation was that it kind of turned into a mini family reunion. Sugar and her friend Mrs. Dianne came and stayed with us to help out with Caroline and so we could actually enjoy the beach (Lifesavers!!!!!). Steven's sister Janet and her family were going to be there the same week we were, so his other sister Julie decided she didn't want to be left out of the fun, so she made arrangements to be there at the same time as well. It was so great to all be there at the same time. However, we really missed Pops-he had to stay back in Lafayette to work.

So, after we unpacked and settled in, we went next door to Janet's condo and ate some dinner and just relaxed. Everyone passed Caroline around and she loved being the center of attention (go figure).

Getting some quality Sugar/Aunt Julie/Aunt Janet time

The next day, we woke up and got around to go to the beach. I wanted to at least take Caroline down for a little bit before it got too hot.

Ready to hit the beach! (please excuse my flabby arm-I was trying to get Caroline to look at the camera)

I didn't get a lot of very good pics on the beach. Steven didn't want to take the good camera on the beach, and I didn't disagree. I have a very love/hate relationship with sand, so it was a wise choice. That being said, I couldn't get too excited about taking pictures with my regular ol digital point and click camera. I have been spoiled by our awesome camera and I just can't go back to the old way.

Hanging out on the beach with Steven's nephew Ben, and Amber, Blake's girlfriend (Steven's other nephew)

Caroline wasn't too sure about the sand. She just looked at it and I could tell that she wanted to touch it and put it in her mouth.

With Daddy about to go in the water

Annnndddd she wasn't too happy... She likes the pool now, but I think the waves freaked her out.

A litte better....

We pretty much just hung out on the beach the next couple of days and Caroline enjoyed some Sugar time.

One night, we went down to the beach to catch the last of the sunset. We kind of just stayed down there for awhile because it was so nice.

I realize that this picture is fuzzy due to the humidity (I never thought I would say this, but I actually MISS humidity... Do you see what Wichita Falls is doing to me?!). However, I absolutely love this picture of Caroline and Blake.

On that note, it was so funny to see Janet's boys with Caroline. Janet has four boys, and they are ALL boy. But, get them around a baby, and they turn into these gentle giants. I actually heard Andre and Mitchell fighting over who had held Caroline more. They just love babies! They were all so great with her and she loved spending time with her cousins. I told Janet that her boys were going to be excellent daddys some day.

Aunt Janet and Caroline on the beach (sorry for the fuzz again)

Family picture! I love how Caroline is holding Steven's face here. Too cute :)

Really freaky picture of me, but cute picture of Caroline. I'm sensing a trend here...

We had a great time with Steven's family. We don't get to see them often enough, so it was really nice to have a couple of days to spend together.

Okay, now I mean it this time.... Part 3 will be up shortly... Barring any more illness or natural disasters.