Gulf Shores Vacation

A few weeks ago we took a wonderful vacation to Gulf Shores Alabama.  We were long overdue for a vacation and were excited to take our first one with Charlotte Bug!  The trip planning was actually my mom's doing.  A friend of her's has a boss with a condo that he rents out on a vacation rental website.  Mom jumped on and looked at it and it was 3 bedroom and 3 full bath - perfect for all of us! We worked it out so that Mom and Dad went down August 16th (Sunday) for Mom's birthday and their anniversary and were on their own from then until we (Jeff, me, Charlotte and my sister Hannah) drove down Wednesday. We had a great couple days as a family and then Mom, Dad, and Hannah left Friday and me, Jeff and Charlotte got the condo to ourselves until Sunday. (Our anniversary was Thursday the 20th) Shew! It took a lot of planning out all the details but it worked out perfect - and we got a cheaper rate for staying there so long!

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Find our "more" about our condo and the beach!



The condo itself was absolutly perfect. It was 1500 sq ft and a 3/3 as mentioned before, it had a large living and dining, 2 balconies, good sized kitchen. It was stocked with everything you need except food. We cooked just about every meal so that cut down on costs and time away from the beach.  2 TVs with satellite, free wifi, some beach toys and provided all the linens. It made it seem much more like home then a hotel would have been for sure - not to mention it was decorated beautifully!  The pool is also there, it is very large but is only 3 1/2 feet deep so that was not fun for 6'3 Jeff!  But we had fun splashing around anyway - especially Charlotte the water bug.  We had a fantastic view as we were the only high rise condo for a couple miles with only 1-3 story homes around us and on the 11th floor.  With the beach on one side and a lagoon on the other it really felt like vacation everywhere you turned.

The beach was right across the street from the condo - 5 minute walk at most.  I think we timed it perfectly without knowing it. Most if not all schools had started so that cleared out most vacationers and locals alike. The hurricane/tropical storms were coming through then too which was a good and bad thing. We had some rain but it wasn't too bad (we wanted time to relax in the condo and go shopping anyway) The storms did make the waves awesome though! I had never seen the waves as big as they were that week in the Gulf, so it was really fun to get out in. We had plenty of room to spread out with it being so empty. Perfect!  Charlotte is a little water bug and loves swimming so she loved the pool, but not so much the ocean.  It is very loud, very large, and moves a lot.  We got her in it just enough to see if she liked it and to say she was in it but other than that it was pool time and beach time.  Since she is such a monkey toes she loved wiggling her toes in the sand. She loved feeling the breeze in her hair too!

I could go on and on about our vacation, we had such a wonderful time and hope to make it a family tradition.  As you can see from the other posts the couple weeks after vacation have been crazy for the Lyons' household - we were just talking about how we feel like we need a vacation! Maybe next year :)