A local Day-Vacation

Last weekend for Mother's Day, I didn't really want to do anything spectacular or extravagant. Just wanted to hang out with the fam. and maybe take a little drive around the local populous and see the 'sights' ...or as I always like to remind everyone... the same sights we have seen a dozen times lol.

We drove on down to Pensacola to check out Fort Pickens. This was our second time coming here. It never gets old for me though {haha... old} because I love all things history.

The last time we came J was only about 2-3yrs old so he didn't really know what everything was around him, nor did he probly care. He saw tunnels, lots of space and sand and that's all that mattered.

This time however he was full of questions! 'How many bricks are in this fort??', 'Why are there so many tunnels??', 'Where did the people sleep??', 'Where are the people now that were here when this was built??'... the list was endless.

Overall it was a nice quiet, relaxing day filled with family time, sunshine and of course learning about our past. J seemed to enjoy it just as much as I always do {which is nice}. It was a perfect sunny day, hot but none the less, perfect. It's the simple things I enjoy doing with the family. We haven't taken an actual vacation or stayed anywhere for an extended period of time for a vacation {other then staying with extended family for a week every once in a great while} so it's nice to just get out of the house once in awhile and check out the local spots. The vacation spots that are right here in our own backyard.

Family day out on a Tuesday

Did I mention how I am off work this week? Oh, well I am. It's glorious and the best part? Josh decided to take a few days off too {weeee}. So today on the agenda was the beach and a boat ride. Jayden has never been on a boat before so he was extra excited. Better yet Josh and I have lived here for over 10yrs and he has never been on a boat here and this was only my second time out!

I am however trying to talk him into us getting a boat hehehe.

One good thing about this place being all touristy and what not is that we don't have to travel far to see everything.

I also want to make note that the color of the water you see in these photos is in fact the real color of the water. I haven't adjusted the hue/saturation or any other colors of these photos. I know family from back home see my photos and they always think I alter them when in fact no, our ocean doesn't need to be photoshopped. 

The boat docked in the Marina. 

Heading out past the Jetties, out into the Gulf!

These peeps seemed to be intrigued about something in the water....

A Dolphin! :-D

Another reason to get a boat. Great relaxation and hello... Dolphins!

Hello Flipper!

I seriously wanted to just jump in the water and start swimming with the Dolphins. Although we saw a couple Bull Sharks swimming around too so that kind of changed my plans of jumping on in. 

We had a lot of fun, Jayden loved the boat ride. The weather was perfect, light breeze, lots of sun and a nice high 80 temps with low humidity. Perfect, perfect day!

Love, love love living by the beach!

Because we are big beach bums around here and because it's Friday, I am going to leave you a post filled with images that may cause you the sudden urge to want to lay out on the beach with a fruity drink, complete with colorful drink umbrella thingy.

...or just make you want to go to the beach period.

Enjoy and have a great weekend friends!

{one of our quiet spots we know about and the tourists don't w00t!}

Sunny days, smiling faces and a trip to the Zoo

On Sunday we decided to get out of the house and spend the day out and about. First we headed to the Zoo. Our little Zoo has had it's fair share of 'bad' luck. The previous owners let the place fall into shambles and it was on the verge of closing until another group came alone and bought it... along with over 1 million worth of Debt.

This is the first time we have been back since the new owners took over the place and it was really nice to see the place starting to pick back up. More workers running about taking care of everything and anything and the animals just looked a bit happier.

WARNING :: Extremely Pic-Heavy post ahead :0)

Couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. The sun was shining, a few puffy clouds here and there, nice and warm {as always}, we love making little trips to the zoo every now and then and this trip just seemed a little extra fun, if that makes sense. Maybe because it was a lazy Easter Sunday? Who knows, in any case the day was awesome and I love, love, love weekends like this with my little family.

And I love animals, so that makes trips to the zoo even that much more fun!