We're Home!!!

We made it home today around 1pm. As you can see, we were all excited to be home. Our cat Max was glad to see us. We had fun visiting the Eldridge's in Houston.

Here are some final photos from our trip starting with our visit to the Naval Air Museum in Pensacola, Florida. It was a very nice museum with a good variety of naval aircraft dating back to the first Curtis sea plane plus it's free to the public. We all rode the Blue Angel motion ride. Andria should have taken her dranamine.





This is a photo of the condo hotel in Gulf Shores, AL as we departed. If you look closely, you can see the parasailer. Well, thanks for tuning in to our blog and sharing our vacation adventure with us...

End of our Vacation

We have begun the last day and trip home. I'm actually looking forward to being back home after 15 days! I'm really a homebody at heart. We have been in houston the last two days visiting our friends, just hanging out. We floated around their pool some yesterday. We also went to the Veteran's Memorial gravesite and visited my dad's memorial there for the first time. It was a beautiful cemetary. Pretty nice, since it's almost father's day. He died Nov. 28, 1999, when I was pregnant with Cameron. Now, it's pack up the overnight bag and head back to the airport for our short 1hr flight back to San Antonio. Yeah!!

Check out the Family Beach Pics

We got our family beach pics posted online. Check them out at www.sun-shots.com and put 726 as the passcode in the client section.

Gulf Shores Summary by Andria

Well, we are traveling back to the BIG state today. I am catching up on the blog as we leave Gulf Shores, AL to Houston to visit our friends, the Eldridge’s for a couple of days. Hard to believe but today is the only day we rented a car on day 13 of our trip! We got one because we wanted to backtrack a little and go visit the Naval Air Museum that is in Pensacola, FL. It was an hour drive from our condo in Gulf Shores, So we had a little Jeff day as he was in hog heaven looking at all of the planes and the boys enjoyed climbing into a lot of cockpits, including Blue Angel planes. This is the home of the Blue Angel

I’ll catch you up a bit on what we did from Sunday to Thursday. Not much variety actually but so very nice to have no agenda and be lazy. Monday we had the boys go to a kids camp for a few hours and we had a mini date. Jeff lounged on the beach reading books. It was nice to have a little time not having to watch the boys in the water. Together we spent time playing games, watching a couple movies, going to the pool and beach. I loved having no where to be and could get back in bed and read a book if I wanted to. The boys are at a good age for traveling because they can entertain themselves pretty well. Monday night we played Blacklight Volleyball and that was fun. The hotel had set up 8 big blacklight vertical lamps to see and you used a glow in the dark ball. First time the boys have ever played and they liked it.

Wed night we had hired a photographer to take beach portraits. I’ll post a link where you can view them. I’ve always wanted to do this but since we live 2.5hrs from the beach, it’s always too far, too much to coordinate, etc. So, before we left I hurriedly got white outfits together for us all. At the condo, I thought I’d fluff them in the drier some but was horrified when the came out to find brown marks all over the clothes! Yikes!! I think it was some rust in the drier. Anyway, thanks to anti-bacterial wipes (great tip) they came mostly out. The boys did great and the only problem really was me, or should I say my hair. The photographer had to keep stopping to let me get pieces of my hair out of my face. I had it all nice and straight before we left the condo, but immediately stepping out into the Gulf humidity my hair grew at least six inches! Jeff kept trying to pat it down and threatened to spit-shine it for me.

I’ve enjoyed our vacation. Everyone has gotten along-oh minor squabbles here and there but nothing different from being at home. And flying sure beats driving for sure. It’s a three hour flight to Houston. After today it will be a total of 13hrs flying time for the whole trip. Jeff’s happy because he gets his flying time in. He puts it on auto-pilot and listens for his air traffic control commands on the headset. I don’t wear a headset-they annoy me and make me a little claustrophobic. Plus I don’t like listening to all the air traffic jibber jabber. Most of the time his hands are free and he’s snapping pictures right now, actually. The boys are asleep, thanks to Dramamine. No barfing episodes this trip, thank God! I’m still having flashbacks to last summer’s trip with the beef jerky in Denver.

I’ve also enjoyed the break from beads, although I did get to visit a little bead store today and got some neat beads, so I’m ready to get back to it and get the creative juices flowing again. The boys had fun burying each other as you can see.

Signing off for now, Andria

Moore's Leaving Gulf Shores

Well, we have had a wonderful time relaxing by the beach here at Gulf Shores. Cameron and Elliot have learned to skim board while Mom and Dad perfected their lounging technique. We had a photographer take our photos last night on the beach. This is a sample that he took with our camera. Today we are visiting the Naval Air Museum at Pensacola then flying to Houston this afternoon.

Saturday, Heading to Gulf Shores

We woke up early on Saturday because we were going to head to the roof of our hotel and try to catch the space shuttle take off that was scheduled for 7:15am. Unfortunately, it got postponed so Jeff was bummed. We got all our stuff packed up and headed out for a delicious breakfast in the hotel. It was a nice treat because mainly we ate cereal/yogurt in the room most days. Then, catch a taxi and off to the airport.

We were all set to go, seatbelts on, headsets on, when Jeff discovered an issue with his radios. So, back into the FBO the boys and I went to wait. He had planned ahead for the little issue and brought extra supplies so he had it fixed in 20 min and then we were off. It took us about three hours to fly to Gulf Shores, Alabama. This is the kick-back and do nothing phase of the trip that Jeff and I have been looking forward to.


When we had made our trip plans, they told us at the airport, they had a crew car they would loan us for a day. Our resort is about 20 min away from the airport. Well, they couldn't lend it overnight to us, but a guy drove us. He was so nice and even stopped at Walmart to let us get some things. We're staying at the Beach Club Resort and this place is pretty stellar with several pools, and boardwalks right to the beach. They have their own restaurants and stores as well and some family activities. Here's a photo of Gulf Shores...

The boys were excited to have "a little apartment" as they call it. It's a one bedroom condo with a kitchen and bunks that close into a closet in the hall that they think is pretty cool. Our condo is on the first floor with a patio that looks out onto the pool and ocean beyond. The boys went out last night to check things out while I feathered the nest. Next thing I know, Cameron comes running up with his bounty: he clubed a fish with a big stick in the ocean! I think he's watched a few too many Man vs. Wild shows. Man, I'm surrounded by testosterone.

The boys bought some skim boards and have had fun testing them out. Here are some photos of the action...

Last Days in Orlando

Thursday we had fun with my step sister, Missy, and her family coming up to the hotel for a visit. We hung out by the pool, ate lunch and played in the game room. The kids had fun and I got to catch up with mis.

That night we met Luisa and her kids for dinner and then the boys and then headed over to Downtown Disney. I wanted to squeeze in a trip to Magic Kingdom (can't let those passes go to waste!) so the boys and I decided we would take the disney bus over to MK. Well, over an hour and a half later we finally arrived. Lessons learned on how to use the trasportation system. We got on the wrong bus, anyway, we made it in time to see the light parade and fireworks. It's a little challenging getting around without paying our hotel's huge taxi prices. We didn't have our own rental car, but glad that Jeff's boss from work let us use his some and Jeff would drop us off or pick us up in between his conference duties.


Friday, Jeff was done with his conference so we all headed out for the water park, Typhoon Lagoon. I love water parks. The disney parks are all so well manicured and I enjoy looking at all of the landscaping. They had a long lazy river that went around the park and it was nice laying back and looking at all of the meticulous plants shading the water. There was also a cool snorkel area where we could don snorkels and look at fish and sharks. The boys thought that was very cool and they picked up snorkeling pretty well.

Then, we headed over to our niece's birthday party. Analisa had a little swim party with her cousins to celebrate turning 8. We had a fun afternoon playing in the pool and hanging out.