Month: July 2012

I cannot tell you how lucky we were and I cannot tell you how much fun we had. There was a tropical storm that could have headed towards Gulf Shores or it could have headed to Florida, but thankfully, we were spared a ton of rain. There was some wind, but the rain traveled to the East and Gulf Shores was a bit windy, but it was good.

We arrived on Sunday and we were set to leave on Friday. Sunday was windy and cloudy and the waves were high. The flags outside of our condo were both red, which is not good. Thankfully, things improved:

Our condo was nice. Small, a one bedroom two bathroom apartment and we were 12 floors up. It was big enough for us as a family and there was a kitchen were we could make lunch and breakfast.

Fitsum was not afraid.

Fitsum had these sunglasses for all of 10 minutes.

Sweet Sweet got Fitsum this floating device, which was funny. I also infuriated my wife by wearing this shirt to protect me from getting sunburned. As I told her, I don’t care about being tan at this point in my life.

Here is Sweet Sweet and Fitsum and my wife looks beautiful.

And Fitsum very much enjoyed playing in the sand

By the end of the trip, the water was clear and beautiful. There was the beach, and then about 20 feet from the beach, there was a sandbar where you could stand ankle-deep in water and so the beach and the sandbar created a nice three foot pool where Fitsum could float and play and we didn’t have to worry ourselves to death thinking something awful was going to happen.

This was the scene from the end of the trip.

We couldn’t have had a better time. I got to eat a ton of seafood. Sweet Sweet got to go to the beach. Fitsum got to build sandcastles. Win. Win. Win.

I am constantly amazed about how little I write here and it’s becoming depressing. Previously, it was because I didn’t have enough time and that’s still the case to some extent. The other reason is that I just find other things to do. But it’s seems disingenuous to not keep this up because this is supposed to be me tracking our journey with Fitsum. And as I type this, Fitsum comes into the room saying, “Hi, Daddy. Hi, Daddy. Hi, Daddy. Hi, Daddy.”

So this is our first family vacation. My wife planned the entire trip and so she gets all of the credit. The first leg of our trip was a drive to New Orleans, where my wife had never been before. She thought it would be fun, and it was. We stayed in a really terrific hotel downtown that was within walking distance to Canal Street and we had a good time.

Fitsum and I at the Mississippi River:

Sweet Sweet and Fitsum in Jackson Square:

Taking a ride on a horse-drawn carriage:

The funny thing about this experience is that we sat up front, and Fitsum is going through this phase where if someone is yelling, he’ll yell back. The drive was having to speak up so that everyone could hear him, so Fits just yelled jibberish the entire ride. Awesome.

We also had a really nice dinner at a brewery. I had my very first soft shell crab and it was great. We were a tad bit desperate because Fitsum was getting a bit cranky. Nevertheless, we had a really good time.

Next stop is Gulf Shores and that’s were we pick up next.