Destin, You Own My Heart

Home.  I AM HOME!

::ahhhhhh::

It was a FABULOUS week.  Seriously.  I can’t tell you the last time I had a full week that had NO schedules.  I’m not sure I ever have, honestly.  And to spend a full week with so much family and freedom?  It was an absolute joy.  I had such a blast.

Tony LOVED the beach.

Okay, he didn’t.

He LOVED the beach chairs.  I don’t know.  He’s weird.  He couldn’t stand SAND touching any part of him.

Instead, he loved beach CHAIRS.  I KNOW, RIGHT?!  Here we are, in paradise, and he spent HOURS just walking up and down the rows of beach chairs, counting them and climbing on them.  He is not a fish.  He’s a goat.

But he had fun on his own terms.  He loved the food, for instance.

He loved hearing his PaPa jam out at Saturday’s jam session.

He loved cuddling with MaMa.

And he liked LOOKING at the beach.  From a distance.

Also interesting: Bryan and I did a bar crawl on Saturday night.  It’s only my second bar crawl EVER, and I’m not sure Bryan even knew what a bar crawl was.  So who offered us the opportunity?

MY 68 YEAR OLD FIRST COUSIN.

I KNOW, RIGHT?!  We felt so old and so tired, but my God, we went.  Daddy and I conned Mom into watching Tony and we all hit the harbor in Destin to “bar crawl”.

.. we made it to two bars.  Cause we’re old and lame.

(This was BEFORE bar #1. You can only imagine how great I looked by the end of the night, huh?)

But most awesomely, we got to meet Daddy’s side of the family (again.. sort of).  Daddy’s nieces are incredibly fantastic, gorgeous women who were SO much fun to hang out with.

I laughed so hard through most of our times together that I was hoarse for most of the week.  It was so neat to hear their stories of growing up and how they knew Daddy.  For instance, he had a nickname: BUD.  HOW HAVE I GONE THROUGH ALL OF MY CHILDHOOD NOT CALLING HIM BUD?!  It’s a travesty.  I’m working to rectify it, trust me.

Bud also threw down on Saturday night in a jam session that had him playing with some locals at a bar.  Not only had most of his family NOT heard him perform before, but Tony hadn’t ever either.  It was too much fun.  Bud totally rocked the house.

Bryan and I are already planning for next year’s trip.  We never really made traveling or vacationing a priority before; life always seemed to get in the way.  But after we got away for a week, we realized that it makes us SO much more aware of our daily blessings.  And next year, some redhead who writes for this blog MIGHT be turning the big 3-0 around September 3rd, and there is just no other way I’d rather enter a new decade.