It is taking me awhile to write this up…we had such a great time and I had so much I wanted to say…but ..since I am getting so much pressure to recap this…..ahem, not to mention any names *cough*gayle*cough*…..here you go!

Thursday morning dawned bright and beautiful! We got up early as we were expecting Gayle and Hank to pick us up at 10:00 and we wanted to be ready! Mike and I took one last walk and we packed up the last remaining items into our suitcases……then….then we found out that our ride was running a bit late. The reasons why are unimportant but we found ourselves with some time to kill, hungry and we had checked out of our room. We decided to grab some lunch while we waited. It was perfect timing as Gayle called as we were walking back to the hotel after lunch to say they were a few blocks away.

Little did Gayle know she was in for a long ride as Mike promised me he would not drink on the ride to Destin, as last time we did this, it got ugly. Sitting in a car drinking for 5 hours is not a good thing. On our way we heard from Stephanie who had some bad news” the a/c in the big condo was not working! She had a call in to have someone come look at it, but it was unbearable in there right now. When we were just outside of Destin she called to say she was taking the kids over to the beach condo and we should meet her there. Hank was relieved that the a/c was working fine in “his” condo. Gayle finally cracked and had a beer when we hit Niceville, much to Mike’s dismay.

We were told Chase was waiting to let us in the gate so we waited. And waited. And waited. Watched some guy shower. Apparently Chase let in some other people and had no idea it wasn’t us and went back to the condo! He finally came back out for us and we all piled into the house, glad to be there. We had a beer and heard back from Ron that the a/c was fixed and we could come over to the big condo. So we piled back in the vehicles and drove the short distance over to Baytowne. This year Mike, Connor and I would be staying at Le Jardin with Ron, Stephanie, Chase and Mallory. Hank and Gayle were staying in the smaller condo, as “they don’t like children”. Kidding. Kind of. Actually it works better for Connor and Chase to be together as they can run around and keep each other company. We hauled the suitcases up to the bedrooms and decided we needed to eat. Baytowne was packed and everywhere we tried had a long wait. We ended up at the New Orleans Creole Cookery. By the time we finished dinner it was late, we were all exhausted so after a nightcap on the porch, we noticed Hank was falling asleep so we decided to call it a night. We had an early and busy day planned for Friday.

Friday
I was up early and enjoyed the quiet morning reading on the balcony until Mike got up. He went for a run and then he and Ron went to get some breakfast for everyone. Once we got the kids up, Ron, Mike, Chase and Connor went to the Marina to get the boat. Stephanie and I packed up towels, sunscreen, jelly fish repellant and snacks for the day. We eventually got Gayle out of bed and she and Hank met us on the walk over to the pier where the guys were going to pick us up. We didn’t have long to wait and soon we were on our way! The boat is beautiful! Plenty of room for everyone to sit, a bathroom, kitchen , seating area and even a bed. Absolutely beautiful. We headed out towards the Gulf and found a place to anchor so we could swim and eat some lunch. The water was warm and not to many jellyfish. We let Chase do some fishing here and there and the time just flew. Before we knew it we were heading back in. Sweaty. Windblown. Sticky. Ron pulled the boat up to the pier and we started to climb off. Gayle, when it was her turn, kind of got stuck. One leg on the pier, one in the boat, and the boat started drifting away! We all stood there laughing (good friends aren’t we?) as Mike slapped her on the ass (and blamed Chase) until Gayle finally managed to get her other leg off the boat and she collapsed on the dock! Thankfully she was unhurt because we were all laughing too hard to notice if she was injured. We laughed all the way back to the house. Everyone needed time to shower and clean up before we headed out to dinner. Hank got the party started with a delishious cheese/basil/pesto appetizer! (Don’t forget to send me the recipe!) and then even though we stuffed ourselves on it we went to eat at McGuires Irish Pub. Even though we had a BUSY day, the fun was just beginning!

McGuires is a really cool restaurant in Destin with hundreds of thousands of dollars hanging from the ceiling all over. Not just stuck to the ceiling, but hanging down, its really cool. We didn’t have to wait long for a table and once we ordered the fun began. Mike ordered the “tall” beer, which turned out to be this ginormous glass and he had the waiter harassing Gayle about her “baby” beer all night. Meanwhile, Ron drank his little fruity drinks. The food was wonderful but criminy, we probably all could have shared one dish, the portions were so huge! Apparently there is a tradition at McGuires where they get people to come up and stand on this stool and kiss the giant moose head. All during our dinner the guy singing would have someone come up and everyone would sing “kiss the moose, kiss the moose” and the person would kiss the moose. Well of course our table could not let this go, and we volunteered Mike to kiss the moose! He put everyone else to shame! He danced his way up there, did a little ass shake, high fived the antlers and kissed the moose! HYSTERICAL. Mike is such a good sport. He had no idea what we were volunteering him for.

Stuffed full, we rolled out of McGuires and decided to stop at Wal-mart. We wanted to check to see if they had any big inner tubes that we could pull behind the boat the next day. We wandered around (destin has a rather nice wal-mart, Hank even bought a shirt!), Gayle amused us by riding the motorized scooter. Then it was time to head back to the condos. Poor Hank got stuck with me, Gayle, Stephanie and Mallory. Ron, Mike, Chase and Connor in the other car. We knew they were going to stop at Kristy Kreme for donuts as the hot light was on, so we headed back ahead of them. Tried to tell some jokes (brown chicken, brown cow). Then we heard from the guys. Making moaning sounds as they devoured hot Krispy Kremes. Then, they called again. Apparently they saw another van with LA plates, thought it was us, and harassed the people in it! of course it was not us, it was an old lady and an old man! Ok, maybe you had to be there but it was freaking funny!

We made it back to Baytowne and everyone headed off to bed……more to come…