We took our first real vacation as a family of five last week when we
traveled to Pensacola Beach, Florida. Jarrod's dad has a condo there
that he owns with beautiful ocean views. It is seriously one of the most
peaceful, beautiful places I've been. Maybe it is the time of year we
go, but it always feels like we are at the end of the earth in a place
not too many people visit. It is just so GORGEOUS. We spent five days
down there with Bob and Laurie and had an excellent time. We mostly
played on the beach, but we also went to a great little zoo and took a
ride on an air-conditioned Ferris wheel. (Yes, you read that right!) The
kids traveled pretty well. Pensacola is a small airport so a direct
flight was impossible but they did awesome even with some delays on the
way back! Laurie got a new camera and was trying her hand at photography
while we were there. We were lucky to be her test subjects! She got
some AMAZING shots. The zoo was really neat too! It was a small, family
place, but they actually let you feed a lot of the animals. For anyone
who has ever seen the movie, "We bought a zoo", it reminded me of that
zoo after they fixed it all up. You could get really close to all of the
animals and they had some great exotic stuff. They also had A LOT of
room for some of the animals to roam, including a big chimpanzee island
and huge prairie/meadowland that some of the zebras, antelope, etc. were
roaming in. It was a really cool place!
The condo is surrounded by water on three sides and has a huge, wraparound balcony that shows off all the water views. This is looking straight into the Gulf of Mexico
Beautiful sunsets every night
Up close and personal with a Spider Monkey!
The boys pooped out at the zoo
Dylan and Nora with Grandma
This is one of my favorite shots - Nora's got em in a sleeper hold on top of a Ferris wheel
Group shot on the balcony
The following shots were taken by Laurie Yates: :) :)
