Panama City Beach, FL 2017 – Day 2

Our second day at the beach started out like this… 

B stepped out of our bedroom to see these two little babies wide awake just chilling on the couch chatting.  Haha.  So sweet!

B then headed for donuts while the kids and I watched some cartoons.  We watched a lot of Curious George on this trip since we only had cable…no Netflix like at home!  (The internet was horrible this year in the condo.)

After our quick breakfast of champions, we suited up and headed to the beach bright and early.  The day was really cloudy since storms were on their way, but the kids didn’t care.  They were all up in the water!  They looked for shells, they built sandcastles, and they got lots of good wave splashing in before we headed up to have lunch.

We made turkey sandwiches and prepared some fresh fruit in the condo for lunch, and we ate out on the balcony.  There’s nothing like eating fresh fruit with this view!

After lunch we headed down to the pool for a quick dip.  The water was freezing since it was so cloudy and breezy, so we only stayed for a few minutes.  The majority of the time we were there both kids sat on the stairs chattering their little teeth.  

Next up were quick baths for the kids followed by naptime for Olivia and quiet time for Jacob.  Brian was kind enough to stay in the condo with the kids so I could go back down to the beach for some alone time.  All I brought was myself and a beach bag with the essentials – a towel, my book, my hat, and a bottle of water… pure heaven.  I felt nice and refreshed after my solo time and I headed back to the condo to get ready for the evening.  

We always like to go to Pier Park at least twice while we’re at the beach because there is so much to do there, so we decided to go ahead and make that evening the first of our Pier Park nights since the forecast was calling for rain the next two days.  We had dinner at Margaritaville first, but not before stopping to take pictures in the big beach chair!

At Margaritaville I had the best burger.  It was called the Caprese burger and it was topped with fresh mozz, tomato, fresh basil, and a balsamic glaze… heavenly.  I also need to mention the Blackberry Moonshine Margarita that I had... OMG.  SO GOOD.  I must find a way to replicate it at home.  The description on their menu says that it has Ole Smoky White Lightnin’, Blackberry Moonshine, and it’s mixed with their house margarita blend.  If anyone has the complete recipe for this, please do let me know.

The kiddos always love that place because people walk around on super high stilts and they make balloon animals for the kids… or in Jacob’s and Olivia’s case… a sword and a flower respectively.  :o)

After Margaritaville, we walked down to the beach to watch part of the sunset.  It was very windy and the ocean was really rough.  If you’ve ever been to the gulf then you know that the waves are usually very small and calm there, so this was quite different than the ocean that we normally see when we visit.  We could definitely tell that storms were moving in.

When we left the beach we walked to the other end of Pier Park to the carnival and we were surprised to see that the carnival had completely changed since we were there last.  They had totally different rides, and a lot more of them.  

The kids started with the bouncy houses and eventually made their way to some airplanes that fly around in a circle.  They even went down the big slide… I was scared for Olivia to go down it, but she did fine and loved it!  Jacob and Brian did bumper cars, and Olivia was begging to go on them, too, but she wasn’t quite tall enough.  Poor girl.  She was cheered up right away when she got to “drive” a little truck, though.  :o)  

By the time we finished up at the carnival it was getting late, so we walked to Kilwin’s and stood in the crazy long line to get some of that yummy ice cream.  Just as we were sitting down at a table outside, it started to sprinkle.  The sprinkling quickly turned into a steady rain and eventually it started pouring.  We quickly grabbed the kids and ran to a nearby covered walkway where we finished our ice cream.  

At this point we were at a loss for what to do.  The radar showed that the rain would be there for a while, but we had no umbrellas and the car was really far away in the parking lot.  A nice employee at Pier Park told Brian that he could grab the car and drive around to the other side and it would come out pretty close to where we were standing, so B took off running to go do that.  While we waited, the employee took two clean trash bags and fashioned some little makeshift raincoats for each of the kids to wear so they wouldn’t get too soaked.  Spoiler alert:  they still did.  Lol.  We all did.

By the time we got in the car we were all soaked and chilly, but everyone was in good spirits so we had a good laugh about it.  We were all relieved to get back to the condo and trade in our wet clothes for something warm and dry, though.  We got the kids ready for bed, said our prayers, and then it was time for everyone to crash.

That’s it for day two!  If you missed day one, you can see it here and I’ll be back to recap more next week.  I’m not going to do another beach post tomorrow… I promised not to bombard y’all all at once.  ;o)  See you here tomorrow for Five on Friday!

*Linking up with Sparkles and Lattes for Confessional Thursday and Home of Malones for Thoughts for Thursday.