Getting there

Although Jeremy really wanted to get up and at 'em and on the road as early as possible today, he was kind and let the kids sleep a bit.  We made it down to breakfast around 8:30, and apparently that was the time to be there!  I guess everyone who stays at Drury knows they have pretty good breakfast.  We all had enough to eat, and Sylvia got her breakfast potatoes.

She is a huge fan of Drury potatoes!  And they were just what she was looking forward to!

Trying to wake up...

Or not trying super hard to wake up...

We were on the road by 9:30, some of us still not fully awake...

The kids watched a movie.

Much of the drive looked like this today:

And this:

Within an hour, we'd made it to Alabama.

This rocket at the Alabama Welcome Center has become a familiar landmark.

Crossing the Tennessee River

at the Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge

The girls took some of these pictures.  Annah appreciated the hills and more mountainous views we don't see around the prairies of central Illinois.

I got a text from my brother when he received his 40th birthday gift from us.  (By the way, Travis, none of the kids want to claim any part in the gift selection.)  

My mom also checked in with us to see if we had arrived at our destination yet.  

Not quite, but we were enjoying the journey!

We crossed a bridge and noticed the creek it went over was labeled Murder Creek.  It piqued our interest, so I looked it up and we learned about how it got its name.  Quite the history lesson!

4:29pm, Bay Minette, Alabama

We got stuck in a couple hours worth of slowdowns on the interstate today, and we were very anxious to get to the beach.

5:02pm, getting closer!

Palm treeeeeeeeeeeeees!!!!!

Because we were arriving quite a bit later than expected, I had Jeremy drop me off at Walmart to get the beginning groceries for the house, and he and the kids went to unpack at the house.

They arrived!

As I was wrapping up shopping, Jeremy called me and said they'd gotten into the house and unpacked, and he was on his way back to pick me up. I texted the kids to ask for a selfie.  They were pretty happy to be in our beach-happy-place!  

By the time we got back to the beach house, unpacked groceries and baked some frozen pizzas, it was  pretty much dark once we walked to down to the beach.  We used our phone flashlights to get down to the water!

It took 2 days, but our feet are in the sand now!

Time to relax!