Panama City Beach Vacation 2011

This year we planned a family vacation to Panama City Beach for after the girls were done with school. We left on Saturday, May 28th and drove to Pelham, AL. I was afraid our hotel for the night was going to be a problem. The pool was closed for chemical treatment and there was a Zac Brown Band concert right behind our hotel. As it turned out, there was a McDonald's with a great outdoor playground that the girls enjoyed more than swimming, and we weren't bothered at all by the concert noise. We arrived in Panama City Beach, FL on May 29th and stayed until June 3rd. We had such a wonderful time! Our condo was lovely. (If you're looking for a place to stay, I recommend the Palazzo. Find our condo here.) We played on the beach, swam in the pool, played games in the condo (we introduced Chloe and Sophie to Yahtzee, Triominoes, and Jenga), and ate some yummy dinners out (Carrabba's, Spinnaker, Olive Garden, and Red Robin). The big girls bodyboarded in the ocean and all three girls collected shells on the beach. One evening we took the girls to see Kung Fu Panda 2 and let them ride the carousel at Pier Park. Thursday night we walked out on the pier just as they were starting the fireworks display. It was a nice and unexpected surprise. It was so wonderful just to relax and laugh as a family! We headed out on June 3rd and drove to Athens, AL (just south of the Tennessee state line). We spent the night in a hotel there playing games and resting up for another day in the car. We arrived back home again in Indiana on June 4th. The girls did GREAT on the car rides both down and back. Splitting the drive into two days was definitely worth the cost of a hotel room. Here are some pictures from our trip (please enjoy them... it was a bear to get them on here for some reason!):

McDonald's playland

The Palazzo

Sophie

Chloe

Charlotte

Buried in the sand

Pool time

Searching for shells... or maybe it was fish that time.

It was a long day.

Bodyboarders

29 weeks!

Dinner on the beach

Welcome to...

...Spinnaker!

Charlotte, Jay and I at Spinnaker

Dinner at Olive Garden

Sophie's sandmen (instead of snowmen): it's our family.

Me and Charlotte

Our family

Chloe, Sophie and Charlotte

Jason and the girls

The sunsets were beautiful!

Jason was asking Charlotte about her favorite part of vacation.

Ta-da!

Another belly pic

We didn't eat here, but the girls wanted to get their picture taken in the big chair.

Waking up on the last morning of vacation in the hotel in Athens, AL. This is classic Sophie. She is NOT a morning person!

And this was Charlotte not yet awake.

We lost power the night we got home, so we had the girls work on their summer workbooks by candlelight (Yep, school work over the summer. I'm mean like that... don't want those brains getting mushy!), then we played some Yahtzee and dominoes.