Fall Break 2021: Rest of Dauphin Island

The rest of the week was spent relaxing on the island. Mom came over on Tuesday afternoon, bearing more groceries since we didn't have a grocery store on the island! Did I mention the 3 mile bridge we had to cross to get there??

Beach bums. Here's a video of some of the antics on the beach. The kids absolutely loved the way the sand squeaked so that's part of this one!

Ike was so pumped to finish the book he was reading! 

I took far too many sunrise/sunset pictures. Just scroll on past if you're not interested :)

Dauphin is self-appointed the Sunset Capital of Alabama and I believe it!

One morning I walked all the way out to Pelican Point (took me about an hour to get there) and holy cow so many birds were there! Here's a quick video of the kids boogey boarding followed by birds flying away from the point!

On Thursday we had some chance of rain in the morning so we went to the local estuarium.

The kids (and us!) loved the sting ray area. We were pretty much on our own throughout the entire aquarium so we hung out here for a while. 

After the estuarium we went over to Fort Gaines. This fort was super well laid out and had all kinds of information, highly recommend! However the storm had blown over and it felt like it was a million degrees out so we were sweltering!

Dave was our tour guide. 

Came back for a dip in the pool to cool off!

Mom and I went down to watch the sun set on the west end of the island that night. It took some maneuvering because there was still a lot of clean up from hurricanes earlier in the season but we made it!

Friday was mom's last day with us so we did a little shopping, walked on the beach some and hung by the pool. 

We were supposed to head home on Saturday but decided to stay one more night because why not?

Saturday we did absolutely nothing and Ike spent the day trying to catch crabs. He was very successful!

The boys took one last evening dip in the pool. That was probably Ike's favorite part of vacation. He loves swimming at night!

Last sunset!

We had such a fantastic time on the island. Not as much to do as our normal fall break beach destiny (Folly Beach), but it was a great change of pace for us! We will definitely be back!
 

Fall Break 2021: First Days of Dauphin and Gulf Shores

When we woke up on Sunday we hadn't quite decided what we were going to do. Mom had invited us over to Gulf Shores to hang out with her friends, so we hopped on the ferry and headed that way!

We were treated to a beautiful sunrise that morning!

We picked about the most terrible day to ferry over. Super windy and it was cold.

Check out that hair!

After our ferry adventure, mom picked us up and we went to Fort Morgan which was right next door. 

One of the founders of the fort had a last name of Bowyer so the kids were excited to see our name!

We left the fort then met mom's friends for brunch at Brick and Spoon (fantastic!) then went back to their condo to swim and play at the beach. 

We found out right before mom was going to drive us back to the ferry that they were considering closing it down because of the high winds. Super thankful that didn't happen! The ride back over was much more pleasant since it was a lot warmer but we still had a lot of wind.

Monday morning we really decided to do nothing because the kids were worn out from our adventure the day before. Ike wanted to take a bath in the fancy whirlpool tub so he did that while Dave played video games. 

We hit the pool and the beach a little, but it wasn't super hot that day either. Thankful for one of the pools being heated!

Beautiful sunset that night.

 

Fall Break 2021: U.S. Space and Rocket Center

When we decided to go to Alabama for fall break this year we knew we had to stop at the space center in Huntsville on the way. Dave has been so interested in anything NASA for the last year so we made the trip part of his birthday present!

We drove on Friday until we were about an hour away from Huntsville then stopped for the night. Got up nice and early and had some time to kill so we did a little shopping before heading to the space center. 

At first we went to the wrong place so we almost ended up at the actual Marshall Rocket testing site, but we got it sorted out! 

Waiting to get in.

There were so many rockets and shuttles to see on the grounds.  And they had a G-force accelerator that was part of the ticket price-it was so fun and made us very dizzy!

The kids before they went on the simulator video ride.  We also watched an IMAX movie called Our Place in Space-super interesting look at the solar system and universe!

Ike loved pressing ALL the buttons in this Apollo module. 

Great experience at the museum, we highly recommend going! Dave and Ike both loved it and we could have spent a lot more time. But the ocean was calling!

Before we crossed the bridge to Dauphin Island we stopped at Whataburger for the first time ever. Food was great, service was slooooooow.

We finally made it to our condo around 8:30 and Ike begged and begged to go to the pool. Guess who got his way? :)