Stormin' the Gulf Coast

Labor day weekend is officially a vacation weekend for us. We spend a week cleaning the house and packing our clothes and groceries so that we can load up the family van and cruise down farther south to Mississippi. It's always a great trip because we rent a large house or condo and visit family. We also celebrate the birthday of my Great Aunt Inez, this year she turned 97.
Unless you live in a cave, you most likely heard that there was a tropical depression on the gulf coast followed by a tropical storm.

 Tropical Depression 13 had some fierce winds, that's for sure.

But we had a great time anyway. A little rain and wind can't scare us off!

We spent the 5 days at the beach and splash park while spending one day at the official reunion/party. The boys were super-duper well behaved.

Okay, Fletcher was really good unless someone besides me or his grandma tried to hold him. That is one pitiful display! Cousin J.D. wanted to be friends and Fletcher totally protested the offer.

Zeb was really well behaved unless someone tried to take his picture. The only way to snap a decent shot of him was to sneak around and stalk him like I was a photographer for TMZ sneaking around to snap a photo of Brad Pitt. Yes, I do have quite the imagination.

The great aspect of being on the coast during a storm is not only do you get to experience fierce, scary winds combined with tons of water and thunder BUT you also get the opportunity to find some treasures that wash up shore.

 Okay, so lots of trash washes up too. It's not only sad that the oceans are so polluted, but I find myself amazed this light bulb was still intact.

 This bird skull might not excite ya'll but my kids thought it was pretty darn cool.

 A coconut with little clams all over it was interesting.......smelly too. I wonder how long it had been floating around the gulf.

 Mississippi might not have fancy sea shells, but some were pretty. I think the kids brought home a kazillion of them. In fact our first math lesson could e to count them all!

 This driftwood was a treasure for me! Devin found it and it is all hollowed out in the center.

These large lures were pretty cool and I am sure we will make something with them. Something real classy for sure:-)

 There were some breaks in the rain and the air was still warm so we enjoyed walking the beach. I will close with a few pictures and promise that next time I will tell you about "Dirt Cheap" and why I will be soon be getting a new cell phone. More stories from the Gulf Coast vacation. Have a groovy week!