If we can pull this off...

When I was about 4 months pregnant, my mom and I bought outfits at Strasburg for Luke and his cousin Kate. Luke's was a little one-piece deal, solid white with a little sailboat and Kate's a long white dress with bows on the shoulders. Perfect for photos on the beach. At the time, almost a year ago, I really didn't realize what had to come together to make this happen. The outfit for Luke was for 6 months and when he began to wear that size around 4 months that was my first concern. When I realized that I needed to book a room and coordinate a photographer with our trip only about 6 weeks ago, it was almost time to panic. And of course this was all supposed to happen around the fourth of July, the busiest time at the beach. I decided to start with booking the photographer. In my email to them, I asked if they had any Fridays or Saturdays available in June or July. (Kyle has already taken off a good bit of work, so he was only going to drive down for the weekend). He replied back, "How about June 9th?" I said sure and began looking for a condo. We wanted a three bedroom for less than $200 per night, so I spoke with a realtor to speed the process along. We settled on Maravilla, which is on scenic 98 in Destin, across the street from the beach. (It wasn't until after we arrived that I realized it was only two bedrooms). After the room was booked and the deposit paid, it hit me. Let's see, July 4th is on Saturday so that means...July 9th is a thursday! I was a little nervous about telling my sister and her husband, because I was afraid they couldn't take an extra day off work. They live in Oxford, so it would be a fairly long trip for them. Thankfully, that was no problem, but poor Kyle would have to drive from Dothan to Destin Thursday evening, then back for work on Friday, and back to Destin again Friday night. He was a good sport about it, though.
As it turns out, Kim and Shane were able to get off for Wednesday, too, so early that morning we were off. The weather was beautiful. Not a drop of rain to be found...that is, except for Thursday evening as we were driving to the beach location for our pictures. We planned to leave the condo at 6:00 to give ourselves plenty of time to get there by 6:45. At 6:20 when Kyle and I pulled out into traffic, the horrible, horrible traffic, we were immediately separated from the rest of the fam. When I tried to call my sis I realized I had left my phone in the room. At about 6:30, with phone in hand, we were back on the road. The traffic was comparable to Hwy 280 in rush hour traffic. And it was not just sprinkling. It was POURING. I was actually on the phone with the photographer as we turned on the road to the beach access, discussing whether or not we wanted to reschedule for Saturday (he'd had a cancellation). As I told him I would have to talk to my sister, I thought about trying to get that crew ready again...NO WAY!! The photographer told us to go ahead and go to the beach, he would meet us there. I was picturing lovely pictures of us all playing in the rain. No need to discuss rescheduling with Kim--that wasn't happening. But, as we pulled into the parking spot the clouds parted. You could actually see the sun. It was a miracle! We quickly got Luke dressed in the car (had to wait until the last moment to end up with the least amount of spit-up on the white outfit, and by the way, if we tried to put that on him one day later it would not have fit.) We all rushed out to the beach and hopefully got a few good shots.


When the pictures were done and we were eating dinner at Gilligan's (next to Harbor Docks in Destin. I recommend) I said to my sister, "If we pulled that off, anything is possible!" It seemed to have been doomed from the start, but somehow it all came together. I think we even had a little fun, too!








You know how you always say you need a vacation after your vacation? Well, Mom and Dad are on their way right now to stay with Luke and we are headed to...Mexico!!