Grayton Beach, Florida (blogging by the beach)

(And, yes, as I type this, I am in fact on the porch of our beach house, soaking in the moonlight and sea breeze and listening to the waves roll in.)

It is hard to believe it's been two years since we've visited the beautiful Emerald Coast of Florida. This year we met Kim's cousin Dawn and her Husband Michael and their 3 children Alex, Jaden and Sean to stay in a beach house in Grayton Beach. This beach is about 20 minutes East of Destin on the scenic 30-A highway, just outside of Watercolor and Sea Side, Florida.

So far we've done lots of relaxing and eating! We arrived on Friday and visited the Red Bar which apparently is very popular. We had every bit of a one hour wait to be seated and we ended up sitting outside-confiscating a table once the patrons were done! The food was really good though. To pass the time waiting on the table, Michael and I took the boys down to the beach for a little stroll. Of course, that stroll ended up with all the kids soaking wet and full of sand! Lucky for us, the restaurant was kid... (and water... and sand... ) friendly!

Saturday, the kids woke me up bright and early to go search for sea shells on the beach. We went and were foiled. No good shells. Maybe next time. The day was wonderful. To quote what I posted on my facebook page, I " built sand castles, rode some waves, collected sea shells, got burnt to a crisp, chilled by the pool, drank some beers and stayed barefoot the whole day. I love vacation!" That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Sunday we visited Sea Side. What a great place. It's about 5 miles from Grayton Beach. We went there just after breakfast and walked around some of the shops and ate lunch at the Shrimp Shack. It was very nice. Once back at the beach house, we basically swam in the pool for the rest of the day. One note for all my Catholic readers: Destin-area Churches do not have a Sunday Mass any later than 10:30 am. BOOO!

Monday we took a trip into Destin and Kim did a bit of shopping at the Outlet Mall. We visited a few souviner shops so Elliot and Drew could pick out a little something to commemorate the trip. Evan didn't get anyting, saying the only thing he wants is a KISS t-shirt. (For all of you who are really gasping at that thought, just know this: the only KISS song any of my kids have listened to is Rock and Roll All Night.) We also stopped by the Destin Commons and spent some money there. We're here to stimulate the economy! I wanted to eat at Floyd's in Ft. Walton, so we made our way over there and had a nice dinner. When we got back that evening, we took a stroll on the beach.

Today, Tuesday, we had food on the brain. I wanted to go to this little breakfast place called Another Broken Egg and it was magnificent. Even the boys raved about how good it was. Very small and quaint, but very good. We swam in the pool pretty much all day and then for dinner went to another local place called House of Klaus. Again, the family raved about how good the food was. We got back a little earlier and went crabbing on the beach. I found some nets in the underside storage closet and flashlights in the kitchen, so we were all set. I caught one large blue crab the boys called "Sasquatch Crab" and one fish, and Evan also caught a fish. But the big story was the sand crabs. I'd shine my flashlight across the sand and you'd see all these little crabs just scurrying to and fro. Evan, Elliot and Drew all caught a whole bucket full of the little guys. After showing them to Kim, we let them go.


I seem to have misplaced the camera, so I am unable to share the pictures we took this evening on the "Great Crabbing Adventure," but once I find it, I'll post them. Until then, here are a few pictures from the pool.