Fourth of July

Looking all patriotic in her birthday outfit Tiffany gave her. Shoes included.

We hit the road around 8 o'clock Wednesday July 1st to head down to Mexico Beach. Stella fell asleep not long after we left the house and slept the entire trip down. She literally woke up as we were pulling into the driveway at the house. And then she was up for a while. Which meant we were up for a while. So we unpacked. I found eggs in the fridge. And I think I had brought some ham. So Donald cooked up breakfast at 1 something in the morning. It was delicious because we were starving and nothing was open in town. We all finally fell asleep after 3 am and sort of slept in the next morning. 

The water was beautiful Thursday and Friday.  We went to Killer Seafood for lunch.  Stella got to walk Bandit on his leash which she loved. Donald was out with the two of them Thursday morning and a lady asked if we were down for the weekend because she wanted to take Stella's picture of her walking B. We walked every morning and night but never ran into her again.

Friday, we drove into Port St. Joe. I got dropped off at the grocery store and Donald picked up lunch from Ron Gants BBQ. We walked down to the beach after Stella's nap and found we had this beautiful, unobstructed view of the beach. These jack@$$%$ set up shop directly in front of our tent.  Never offered to move or move their crap out of the way. There was open space to the left of us and directly in front of their friends who were to our right (but it would have been rude to set up in front of them, right?!)

I love that Stella makes friends wherever she goes. Here, she's helping girls and a family hunt for sand fleas.  After this she played soccer on the beach with a group of 20 & 30-something year old guys. 

Playing Peek-a-boo with Daddy.

"I be 2"

She ended up running down the beach like this for quite a while. She loves being chased. The locals and visitors got a kick out of it.

We rode down to Marx and Claire's house on the golf cart. Stella was so exhausted from playing, being in the sun and no nap that she kept dozing off sitting up. She got to meet and play with some of her extended cousins for a bit before we headed back home in the dark.

Saturday was the only day we didn't work around the house/yard. We spent the entire day on the beach. Stella even napped on it. Donald went back up to the house to make sandwiches for lunch and brought them back down for a picnic.

Look at those buns!

We rode down to Monica's house on the golf cart. We were excited to find a path on the backroads to her place since golf carts aren't allowed on the main road. I bought some cheap Dollar Tree 4th decorations and put them on the cart. They will also work for Memorial Day and Labor Day.

We then rode down to the beach to watch the fireworks. Stella still isn't a huge fan but did really well. I brought my Tula with me and ended up putting her in it to keep her close. She eventually asked for us to take her back up to the road. It's so nice that she can now communicate her wants and needs to us. We walked B around the neighborhood with fireworks going off the whole time and she was fine. I think with all of the noise, the crowd of people and being able to see a bunch of them all at once was too overwhelming for her. 

As nice as it is having the grandparents down to watch her, it was perfect being able to go by our own schedule. It was the first time we'd been to our new place with just us.  Bandit ended up being a huge pain (which was a complete 180 from the last trip). Actually he was probably the biggest pain in the butt on this trip than he has ever been. Not sure what that was about. I'm so happy we have a place where Stella can grow up spending time with us and her family at the beach.