Okay let's start this post off with the question I know you are all dying to have the answer to. Lydia's honey story was in fact a made up story about her Teddy bear. Yeah I know I dodged a bullet with that one.
But even without a giant sticky mess to clean up, Friday was still a really difficult day. That's because it seems like we had to wait all day to leave on a long anticipated weekend trip.
Back when I very first announced that we'd be moving to Alabama my Aunt Lisa told me that I had to visit Gulf State Park because it was like paradise. Ever since then I've had that state park on my little mental list of places that I want to visit while we are living in Alabama.
The problem is that it's on the other side of Alabama and over three hours away. Distance wise it's actually not that far, but there's quite a lot of back road driving involved to get to the interstate. Once you make it there you're only on the interstate for about 80 miles before you get on small highways that have tons of beach lover traffic. In short, there is no direct route from Fort Rucker to Gulf State Park.
When I scheduled the trip I assumed that we would leave early in the day. However, they finally found something for Brandon to while he's in closed hold. He's assigned to an office at the 5700 building and does "office things like go to pot lucks and look at spreadsheets." Overall it's great. But on this particular day we just wanted to hit the road and go to the beach.
He finished work around 11:30, but then was told that he couldn't sign out for a weekend pass until 1:00 so that was annoying.
Meanwhile I was at home trying to deal with four ornery and impatient children. They all needed naps BAD and I was looking forward to them sleeping in the car - if we ever got on the road.
At 2:00 the car was finally loaded, Brandon was signed out, and we were on the road. And as I hoped the kids all fell asleep and slept for at least 90 minutes. So needed.
According to google maps the drive would take 3 hours and 15 minutes. But it was more like 4 hours with traffic. We arrived close to 6:00. When we finally made it to the check in for the camp ground I wasn't so sure if this had been worth the drive. It was nice enough, but I kept thinking that we had beaches in Florida that were a lot closer. What could this one have to offer?
It actually turned out to be really nice. The campground was a lot less condensed than the one at St Andrews State Park. It had probably 400 campsites, but we didn't feel crowded at all. We were at a "primitive campsite" which meant we didn't have electric or water hookups. But unlike the other primitive sites we've stayed at in Alabama State Parks, this one was near bathhouses with running water and flushing toilets, and our site had a picnic bench. So it really wasn't that primitive.
Our campsite was right by this pond.
That had this slightly disconcerting warning sign near it. I laughed when I read the bottom where it says "Enjoy your primitive experience in lower Alabama. "
Rain had started falling almost as soon as we arrived. In a way it was welcome because it took some of the heat out of the air. Brandon went to work building a fire so we could make dinner. Derrick was happy.
Veronica took care of filling up water for everyone.
I started cooking hot dogs while Brandon set up the tent. When the hot dogs were done I realized that we'd completely forgot to pack any plastic wear such at plates. So I improvised and made a platter out of our driving directions. It actually worked really well and nobody really minded that we didn't have plates or forks.
After dinner I decided that we should go walk on the pier and watch the sunset. The pier is normally $3 for an adult to sight see and free for children under 12. But since we were staying in the park we got in for free.
The beach on either side of the pier was free to visit and open 24 hours. It was also beautiful! Yes we have white sand beaches near us in Florida, but there was something extra pretty about this one.
The city of Gulf Shores was visible in the distance.
Everyone loved looking out over the water. We could even see dolphins swimming. Derrick kept talking about "See Dolphins" and Veronica would mimic him. There are many reasons we go on these family trips, but one of the things that makes these trips worth it is that Derrick TALKS about everything we are doing.
Another picture of the water, beach, and city because it was just so pretty.
The sun set, but we were still having a good time. The kids liked spotting the lights from boats on the water. And we could still see some dolphins.
Magical. Simply Magical.
At one point Veronica reached up and gave Derrick a big hug. He hugged her back for a long time. These two love each other so much. Veronica is always willing to play along with Derrick. He calls her "Naca" and it's so cute to hear him ask, "Naca?" and her reply, "What Der-rick?"
And then if the hug wasn't cute enough, the kids all held hands and walked down the pier. This made everything worth it.
When we were done walking on the pier we decided to walk on the beach. This was our first time on a beach in the dark. The sound of the waves seemed extra loud in the darkness.
Before we left the pier the kids wanted to play on this sea turtle stature. They all had a lot of fun with that.
We went back to the tent and changed into pajamas. The kids were all really happy to lay down and go to sleep. I was pretty tired too so Brandon and I pumped up the air mattress and I climbed on a fell right to sleep.
The air was super hot all night and so none of us slept with blankets on us. We even had most of the windows unzipped. In the morning it started to rain a little bit, but nothing bad. We saw a rainbow during breakfast.
Our lack of paper products didn't cause a problem during breakfast. We had mostly finger foods like grapes, gogert, bagels, hard boiled eggs, and sausage. The only thing that caused a little problem was the hash browns. But we just put those in the tin cups and ate them with our fingers.
After breakfast we drove to another part of the park. This was a beach about half a mile east of the pier. This beach has a day use fee of something like $6 (sorry I don't want to look it up right now.) But again that was waved since we were staying in the park.
This beach is open from dawn to dark. It wasn't even 8:00 am yet and we were some of the first people there.
To the east we could see the city of Orange Beach.
We had a great time at this beach. We played for a long time before I got my camera out to take pictures. Here is a sand castle that Charlotte built all buy herself.
A little bit later Charlotte fell in the sand and wanted me to take a picture of how sandy she got.
Lydia wanted to copy her and put her face in the sand.
And Veronica thought that was funny so she had to do it too. Later Veronica sat with me under the umbrella for a while. She started getting annoyed with he swimming suit and started pulling it off. I helped her out of it and put her into the back up clothes that were in my adventure back pack.
Derrick went out into the water with me for a little bit, but he preferred to sit and watch the water.
Here he is playing with the sand. He loves getting dirty.
Brandon spent a lot of time working on a sand castle.
Charlotte and Lydia played in the waves as always. What's funny is that before we went to the beach Charlotte kept telling me how much she hates the waves and how she didn't want to play in them. Then as soon as we got there she jumped in the water.
I'm so impressed by how confident they are in the water. They dive under the water to grab shells.
Brandon working on his castle.
The finished product.
A few weeks ago I finally bought a new swimming suit. I'd bought my last one when I was pregnant with Veronica. I wanted one with shorts and I looked everywhere for one before finding this one at Sams Club. I'm super happy with it, and how I look in it. I felt so much more confident, and I spent a lot more time in the water than I normally do. (Even though Derrick and Veronica cried every time I went too far. (which was like 10 feet)
Derrick claimed the castle porch as his new spot to sit and stare at the water.
Around 10:45 everyone was getting worn out and hungry. I was surprised that we'd stayed there three hours. It hadn't felt that long. So we treked back to our car. On the way we passed a sea turtle nest marker.
We pulled out all the lunch things after we changed back into regular clothes at the campsite. Derrick was happy to have chips. (He'd been asking for them for at least an hour.)
Then we got back into the car and started driving north to a city called Foley. As an odd coincidence all the girls were wearing light blue shirts.
We were heading to the train museum in Foley, Alabama. I knew roughly where it was, but I'd used my printed directions as a plate so I was a little worried that we wouldn't find it. However, we didn't have much of a problem and found it without difficulty. Right when we got there we were given free lemonade from some sort of city pride group. That made me like this place right off the bat.
The train museum had two parts. The first was an area with train memorabilia. Nothing out of the ordinary here. We spent 45 seconds in here
But the other part was what we'd come for. A model train exhibit with at least 6 moving trains, and hundreds of little model buildings. And it was completely FREE!
Derrick was in heaven of course.
The other kids loved it too.
Many of the trains and models in the
Foley Railroad Museum were donated to the city by one man. He stipulated that they must always be free for visitors to enjoy. Volunteers from the Caboose club spent a year making this display and building models. Every Thusday, Thursday, and Saturday from 10:00 to 2:00 visitors can come see the trains.
Everything was super cute. This was a circus.
This was a train depot that was built to look like the one in Nashville.
This is a man that was chased up a tree by a bear.
There was even this area built in the spot by the stairs.
The kids watched the trains for a long time. Derrick was especially interested in the train gates that went up and down when trains went by.
We took a break from the model trains to go look at the real train on display outside. The caboose was open and the girls climbed up in the lookout area.
It was fun to explore.
Then we walked along the outside of the train.
The museum was part of a larger park in the middle of Foley. Everything was so pretty and well kept.
The front of the train.
Then we went back inside to watch the model trains some more.
They were so fun. And Derrick had a great time. He was heart broken when 2:00 came and the workers stopped the trains. He cried as I carried him out of the building. But we'd bought him the CD of the trains that the sold for $5. He was pretty happy when we got back home and turned that DVD on.
Outside there was a giant anchor on display.
And I made sure to take a picture of this train signal, because Derrick loves train signals. (He calls them gates.)
Before heading back to camp we stopped at a Walmart so we could buy some plastic bowls and spoons to use for dinner and breakfast. We also decided that we should get some boogie boards for Charlotte and Lydia. We've thought about getting them for a while, and since we still have several more beach trips planned for this year we figured they'd go to good use. So we found two of those. And we also bought nets for the girls to use to try to catch fish.
We made it back to our campsite around dinner time. It was really sunny and super hot. I had the genius idea to set up the beach umbrella to give us some shade while we ate dinner. We had a quick meal of pasta and sauce.
A snake went by as we were eating. Brandon chased it into the bushes.
After dinner we put our swimming suits back on and headed back to the beach. We went to the one by the pier this time in case we wanted to stay after dark. When we arrived we saw this big sand pyramid that someone had built.
Charlotte and Lydia loved the buggie boards. Derrick and Veronica weren't as concerned about me when I got in the water so I was able to help the girls learn how to get on the boards. Occationally they'd even let me have a turn.
They did great.
Derrick and Veronica started playing a little game where they would sit on the shore and wait for the waves to come up to them.
They would sit right by each other and laugh so hard when the water surrounded them.
Here's a video of them playing.
Later Derrick got tired and so he and I sat on the beach together for a long time and watched the water. I could see fish in the waves. I don't know if that was just something special about this beach, or if it's a common thing that I finally noticed. Either way it was really cool to see the fish in the water as the waves rolled in. This was such a beautiful evening.
We were thinking that we'd stay on the beach and watch the sunset, but after about 2 hours everyone was getting worn out. So we said good bye to the beautiful water and headed back to the car.
As always the kids had fun with the rinse off showers.
We made it back to camp before dark which was actually really nice because getting the kids de-sanded and changed would have been a pain with just lantern light. The kids wanted to get into pajamas before we roasted marshmallows, but I made them get back into their play clothes so their pajamas wouldn't get dirty.
We all got really chocolaty.
Derrick got the most messy.
Sitting around the campfire was fun, but soon the kids were asking to go to bed.
So I helped them change into pajamas and put them to bed. Then Brandon and I stayed up talking by the campfire.
When we went to bed a little later we found the kids sprawled all over each other.
The night was another hot one. In the morning the kids surprised us by sleeping in until 7:00. That was kind of amazing. We'd sort of planned to go to the pier one last time if they work up early. But sleeping in was better.
When I first planned this trip I'd assumed we stay at the park all day Sunday and head home in the evening. Brandon and I don't normally like to camp on Sunday's but staying two nights was the only way to make the long drive to the park worth it. Also we'd been feeling underappreciated in our ward and figured that nobody would care if we weren't there to teach our dwindling primary class.
However, that plan changed when our ward boundaries were FINALLY rearranged the week before our trip. The boundaries for Fort Rucker were officially moved to the brand new Daleville Ward. That meant that we'd no longer go to the Ozark Ward. Individually I really liked the local people in the Ozark ward, but as a group that ward had it quirks and Brandon and I felt ignored.
It didn't help that about 8 months ago all the new families who moved onto Fort Rucker were told to start going to the Enterprise ward. (Which technically was where they should have been all along before someone took it upon themselves to change them without telling the First Presidency 30 years ago.) That meant that military families were moving out of the Ozark ward, but no one was coming into replace them. Every week the ward got smaller and smaller and smaller. I think sacrament meeting attendance was down to about 20 families - and 10 of them were scheduled to move in the next six months. Brandon and I were kind of morbidly curious about how small the ward could get.
When the boundary change happened they ended up combining the Ozark Ward with the Ozark Branch. So they have plenty of people now. (The Branch was bigger than the ward by the end.)
Fort Rucker, part of Enterprise, Daleville, and several smaller communities were combined to create the Daleville ward. This is super exciting and I know it was inspired.
Earlier, I'd told Brandon that I was done with being ignored by ward leadership. I told him that as soon as we moved to a new ward we were going to make sure we had an interview with our new bishop and tell him that we were ready to serve. I'd meant that as something we'd do when we moved away from Fort Rucker, but when this change happened I decided it was something we should do now. So on Tuesday night we met with Bishop Clubb, told him that we were planning on being in the area for the next 6 months to a year, told him that we had plenty of free time, and told him to put us to work.
Within two days we each had two callings.
And I'm super happy about them.
So anyway, we really wanted to attend the first sacrament meeting of Daleville Ward. We wanted to be there to get set apart for our callings and we wanted to see what everyone else's callings were. Fortunately Sacrament Meeting started at 1:00 so if we left at 9:00 we'd made it there on time.
We had a quick breakfast of cereal (our milk had finally thawed out) and left overs. Then we started cleaning out the tent and packing every thing up. There was so much sand all over the bottom of the tent. Charlotte and Lydia "helped" me sweep it out - before they got tired and I took over.
Brandon finished packing up the tent and the car while I took the girls to the bathhouse for showers. I couldn't find any shampoo and a nice lady handed me her's over the door. (Bless kind strangers you meet when you are camping.) The showers were heavenly even if Veronica screamed the whole time.
The girls and I got dressed in our church clothes and then met Brandon and Derrick at the camp site. They went to the bath house while the girls and I drove the car to the dumpsters to drop off our trash. I also made sure to fill up our water containers. We picked Brandon and Derrick up at the bathroom and started driving back.
This time we took a route that didn't have us driving along the beach for miles and miles. That helped it go faster. What really helped was that it was Sunday morning and so there was hardly any traffic.
We stopped for lunch at a rest stop in Florida and then kept going.
We made it to church at exactly 1:03, and got a seat in the back before the opening song was over. We'd forgot to pack Brandon's Sunday shoes so he was in his sandals and I wore mine out of support for him. But other than that you couldn't tell that we'd been sleeping in a tent on the Alabama coast that morning.
And we were there to get our callings. Brandon is second counselor in the Young Men's Presidency and I teach Sunday School to the 12-13 year olds. (I'm OVERJOYED to be teaching something other than Primary again - though I did really like our primary class in the Ozark ward.) We are also both Ward Missionaries which is another calling that I'm really excited for. Ever since I read the Power of the Every Day Missionary in August of 2014 I've had a change of heart about missionary work. I really should do a whole post about my thoughts on member missionary work.
It was great to be there for the first sacrament meeting of the Daleville Ward. Great things are going to happen here. Great things.
After Sacrament Meeting we had a meet and greet while eating cookies and other snacks. The Bishopric took care of setting everyone apart for their new callings.
When we came home it started raining so we didn't take care of unloading the car until the evening. And then on Monday I aired out all the sleeping bags and shook off all the sand. I also vacuumed out the car and washed the car seats. I think we could have made a whole new beach from all the sand we brought home.
At one point during our trip Lydia turned to me and said, "Thank you for planning this Mom! You plan good things!" That made me so happy. And later Charlotte asked, "Are we going to the beach again?" She was pretty happy to hear that we have another trip planned for two weeks from now. All of us are looking forward to exploring another beach. And making more magical memories.
