Life with the Hogg Family: 1st family vacation

This past week has been so much fun. We took our first family vacation. We rented a condo and went to Gulf Shores Alabama. This is the first time that Wade or I had been to Gulf Shores so this was a new experience for all of us. Ailise got to take her first real trip. We had a blast and can not wait to go again.
Ailise did really good with car ride down and pretty good on the way back. We left early in the morning going down with hopes that she would sleep but it was raining pretty hard and I think that kept her awake for awhile but she did finally fall asleep on the south side of Nashville and slept for a couple of hours. Coming home she stayed awake a lot more and before we got to the south side of Nashville she was def ready to out of the car.
We stayed at Island Winds West in Gulf Shores. Our condo was on the 8th floor and had a great view of the beach and ocean.

When we got to Gulf Shores Ailise had a blast. She was such a good little girl, we could not have asked for her to be any better. She LOVED the beach and the ocean. She was not afraid of the ocean at all. The very first time we went to the beach once she figured out what was going on she ran down the beach toward the water. The weather was nice and warm while we were there and it only rained once for a few hours, however, it was extremely windy the whole time.

In order to make sure Ailise did not get to much sun or any of get burnt we went down to the beach every morning after eating breakfast for awhile and then we would go back every evening before dark. I think Ailise really liked the evening trips the best because she was able to pick up a lot of shells. I think finding shells was one of her favorite parts.

We ate a lot of good food. We ate at Oyster House, Lambert's, and Shrimp Basket. This was the first time that we had ever been to Lambert's and we really enjoyed it. They had really good food and a lot of it. Then the other places we ate very good fresh seafood.
One afternoon we spent an hour or so at the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo. It was a smaller zoo but was very clean and well kept. They had several different animals some we have not seen at several other zoos we have been to. One example were bears and a peacock that was walking around loose. I have to say I think Wade and I watched more Blue's Clues episodes then we ever have but it kept Ailise happy while we were in the condo. She loves Blue's Clue's to the extreme right now.