Panama City Beach

Since it's Fall Break and our 10th anniversary and we didn't make it to the beach at all this summer, John took the week off and yesterday afternoon we drove down to Panama City Beach, Florida. The drive here took forever. The longest drive ever to the beach! ;)

As we were driving down a friend from our ward called to invite us to dinner at their beach house. (It seems like our entire ward left town this week, either for Disney World or a beach in Florida!) It was so nice to have dinner plans since we arrived right at dinnertime and had no idea what was around. We had a nice dinner with Heidi & Kevin and their three kids (they have one more but he's on a mission). The kids always love playing with Tea & Mateo and John & I enjoyed visiting with Kevin & Heidi.

Since we got to our condo after the sun had set it was dark and we couldn't really see the beach, but we still sat out on our balcony and listened to the waved crash on the beach. It is sooooo nice to be here!

This morning we were up and ready to hit the beach early. I'm so glad the kids were excited! The beach is my heaven... and the beach in Panama City did not disappoint. It's absolutely beautiful. Clear, blue, WARM water and sugar-soft sand.... perfection. The kids loved it too, they even played IN the water instead of just near it. John and I loved watching them play and enjoy the water and waves. The three bigs were even trying to body surf, made me wish we'd brought a Boogie Board.

After playing in the water all morning, we headed back up to the condo for lunch and to take a tour of the town. I must say, we weren't all that impressed with the town, it was really run down and quite dirty. (We've heard it called "Redneck Riviera" and that sounds about right.)

We got back to the condo a little before sunset so we walked back down to the beach to watch the sun set over the ocean and let the kids play some more. It was gorgeous out there.

And then it was gone... and within minutes the sky in the East was dark adn the moon was rising.

We have had an absolutely perfect day... but is there ever a bad day at the beach?! ;)