Our Family

Going to be posting some more vacation pictures but seems like our vacations get crazier every year. I guess that's why Jessica bought a pillow for her home that says "My family must be God's favorite sitcom." Someday I'm going to look back at all our vacations and see what was going on in them but for now I am posting pictures before and after the tropical storm/hurricane. First off is our annual up before daylight, let's go picture of the kids. Yes we are those people that leave in the middle of the night.

 Next we had to get our "year" picture. Lily wouldn't get in the picture, oh well.

 Then each boy had to write his name in the same. I love it.

They were down on the beach almost as soon as we got everything unloaded. These kids love the sand and beach.

Jenny fixed each of the kids a shark tooth digging kit complete with great white shark teeth and megaladon shark teeth. Some were real and some she made but you really couldn't tell the difference. As you can see from their expressions, they loved it. 

 And were very serious about finding these teeth.

As you can see, the first couple of days it was stormy, even before "Gordon" came ashore but at the same time a lot of the rain before hand stayed way out in the ocean.

 We did have a visitor.

 The waves were pretty big before the storm.

 We love the birds

Where we stay

I have had several people through the years of going to Dauphin Island ask me where do we stay? We have been going down there for seven years now and we always rent a house on the beach. Not one house back or across the street or on the bay side but on the gulf side on the beach with the water nearly at our back door. Not sure I had ever rented a house before we started going to the island but I figured if I went with a realty company surely I wouldn't get scammed. I looked for months at all the realty company websites there, VRBO, Homeaway and just googled "beach houses". I finally settled on Dauphin Island Realty. Houses to rent on the beach are kind of expensive unless you go in the off season which is what we have done because the grandkids were either young enough to not be in school or it was OK to take them out for a week. Another thing you have to be very careful of is the pictures of the house. If you don't see a picture from the deck looking right at the water and it says "gulf views", look out. Probably not right on the beach and you better at least talk to the realtor about the location. Pictures can be deceiving. Dauphin Island Realty (DIRE) has been great to work with. We have never ever had any problems. This year we even had to deal with a coming tropical storm/hurricane in which we had to evacuate for one night. And yes, we got reimbursed for that one night without even having to ask for it.
I'm sure there are other companies to rent from but this has been our experience and it has been Great.

Fall is here but not the cool weather

In this part of the country when Fall arrives, about the only way you know it is that school is starting. And with school starting that also means football games. This year we have three starting school and two playing football. The kids are growing up so fast. Such handsome young men. Melts my heart.

 Isaiah was so excited to start kindergarten.

 Three brothers Brown.....

 Supposed to be serious but Jonah just couldn't do it.

 AND just as school gets started, we go on vacation to our absolutely most favorite place. This will be our last year to go during school since Noah is getting older.

 It was stormy the first couple of days. Hehe. Like Hurricane stormy. Got to the island on Saturday and had to go to Mobile for the night on Tuesday. It was a hurricane until it hit land and then was a tropical storm. What an adventure. Spend the night in Mobile, tried to get back to our rented house the next day but couldn't so we stayed in a house further up on the island and finally got back in on Thursday. Still had a great vacation.

 This is what I like to do. Just sit (in a chair) in the water. Ahhhhhh.

 Notice the difference in the waves? From big to calm. So nice.

While in Mobile, we saw some really cool old buildings before the storm hit there. 

 This was really cool. Just read.

 While at the motel, we ate, made up games, watched some tv, went downstairs so we could see and hear the storm. We couldn't hear it at all in our rooms.

 And finally our pirate greeting us at the Maritime museum. ARGGGGGGGGG.

Slumber party at Aunt Jessica's. What's cooler than that....making a tent to sleep in, making popcycles, getting movies and toys. Doesn't get any better.

 Last Silver Dollar City trip before school starts.