For the past few years, the extended Bryan family has been getting together the 2nd weekend in October to celebrate Big D's birthday. He is no longer with us, it's nice to be around family to celebrate his life. It's basically an excuse to get together and have lots of food and drink-a weekend long family reunion.
We left Wednesday night at 6:30 pm. Stella didn't nap and was asleep before we even hit the interstate. She slept until we arrived-just before midnight. Grandaddy and Nene stayed up to greet us, but they headed not too long after we arrived. We had to do our usual-fix a late night breakfast, play and read books for a few hours. But we'd rather her be awake and content then instead of whining or screaming about being in the car for 5+ hours.
Finally we all crashed around 2:30.
The next morning, we did our other beach usual-walk Bandit around the neighborhood.
I bought this hat at Marshall's a while back and couldn't get her to wear it at home. But I finally got it on her at the beach. It's huge so she should have it for years and years.
The water looked pretty and the weather was good, but unfortunately, red tide was pretty bad. Not on this day (Thursday), but as the days progressed, it worsened. I didn't realize it affected your respiratory system. We were all hacking and coughing and near throwing up a few times from coughing so hard. That made things difficult as you can imagine.
Twinsies!
We made friends with a dragonfly and he decided to hang around for a while on my thumb.
Thursday evening, Donald and I snuck over to PSJ to Joe Mama's pizza for a little date night. Then we went over to The Haughty Heron to listen to some live music outside on the patio.
She sure loves her puppy.
And she wants to make sure he knows it.
Friday later that afternoon, Paul, Ginger and the kids arrived. We all went down to Paula's house for supper and hung out there for a bit with all who arrived. We came back to the house, put Stella down for bed and then went over to Lookout Lounge with a lot of the family to listen to Konkrete Soul and karoke. That was an interesting night and fun night.
Saturday, everyone ventured over to Paula's for chips, lots of dip, burgers and hotdogs while the Georgia game played outside in the backyard.
Stella took some time to read to Olivia.
Then Stella and Ivy splashed around in the pool and acted like they were going to nap.
Right as the last bit of sunlight was illuminating the sky, we all walked down to the beach for a bonfire and s'mores. Paula and Monica are in Gulf County and they allow both dogs and fires on the beach vs Bay county (Mexico Beach).
Stella ended up falling asleep on a beach blanket. After everyone cleared out, it was just us and Daniel. We sat on the beach talking for a while. I was nearly eaten alive by a crab. Slight over-exaggeration, but I nearly had a heart attack when I rolled over and saw a pretty large crab side-stepping inches from me in the dark. Both Donald and Daniel thought a spark or ember from the fire landed on me I moved so quickly.
After that, it was so pleasant out. Just slightly chilly, a light breeze and the warm glow from the fire. I could have stayed out there for quite a while longer, but Stella was stirring a lot so we figured it was time to head in for the night.
Sunday, Monica hosted lunch. Then we all took family photos on the beach and went back up to the house to watch the Falcon's game.
Some eventually wandered down to the beach which is where we ended up.
Janet snapped this photo of us and it makes me giggle. The expression on my face is hilarious to me. It's like, "I told you so." Or "what do you want from me?"
And as you can see, Stella ended up napping in the shade on the same blanket she slept on the beach the night before.
She woke up screaming which somehow lead to a 45 minute epic meltdown. I'm not sure if she's ever had one this bad before. I don't know for sure what triggered it, but I hope it doesn't happen again. Even going back up to the house and sitting with her Daddy as requested didn't help. She ultimately calmed down and asked to go back to the beach since that's where mostly everyone was. I got to take Stella and Donald's annual Corona beach photo.
I awoke to this breathtaking view of what used to be my "home". Stella's playground and the towering pines soaked in sunlight and fog at my parent's house.
We stopped by and visited with Nina for a bit. Then swung by DQ and picked up lunch for us and Grandpa.
Love this man and his sense of humor.
He took us down to the pond to feed the fish, but they didn't put on quite the show they normally do since it was earlier than they are used to being fed.
We noticed a produce stand at the old strawberry patch. Donald went inside inquiring about boiled peanuts. They had sold out over the weekend but offered us green ones.
Soon thereafter, we made it to Mema and Papa's. We picked pomegranates and muscadine grapes. Stella, it turns out, is a wonderful picker of these varieties of grapes because she's not a huge fan of them. She actually picks them, puts them in the bucket and repeats this process over and over again. We, on the other hand, pick a handful, put them in our mouth to eat, put two in the bucket, throw another handful in our mouth and repeat so we never get anywhere. Donald actually commented, "Where were you when I was younger? I needed someone to just pick and not eat."
We munched on the grapes on the ride back to our house Monday afternoon. Tuesday, I put the peanuts in the crock-pot to boil, washed the muscadines and made applesauce from our apples that we'd picked a few weeks prior.
