Surprise! The beach!

I haven't posted much because I've been at the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama! My dad and brother are in Africa right now, and my mom, aunt, and I decided to go to the beach! The only way we were able to go is that we got a good price on the beach house since it's not technically summer yet and most schools were still in session!

I know what you're thinking... How was I able to travel when I've been hurting so much and not feeling great? The answer is pain medicine and lots of it. So thankful for that allowing me to go! 

We had never been to Gulf Shores before. We drove, and thought it would be about a 13-14 hour drive. Relay for Life was Friday (5-18-12) night, and we left for the beach at 6am the next morning. I got home from Relay for Life around midnight so I didn't get much sleep that night. But I was so excited for the trip so it didn't really matter!

This was the sunrise when we left on Saturday morning. It was gorgeous.

We took our Suburban, so I had the whole back two rows to myself. I was in charge of directions and we only got turned around once but I caught it early so it wasn't bad at all. I don't know what we did before Iphones! It was so helpful to be able to see us moving on the map on my phone so I could see exactly where we were.

We stopped several times throughout the day, but didn't stop for long. The longest we stopped was for lunch, but it was only about 20 or 30 minutes. 

Remember how I said we thought it would be a 13-14 hour drive? That was according to google. 

SEVENTEEN hours later, we arrived at our beach house. We had been listening to the Thunder/Lakers game in the car, and we had been behind the whole game. Between it taking forever to get to our house, and thinking we were going lose the game, we were not very happy. I was in tears because I was in a lot of pain from the long car ride. We pulled up to our house around midnight as the game was ending and found out that they gave us the wrong keys to the house. Once we finally got the right keys, we turned on the tv to find out that the Thunder won!!!!!!! We quickly forgot the long drive and started looking around the beautiful house while watching the last part of the Thunder game! Winning the game and seeing how beautiful our house was made up for the long trip. 

We all slept in Sunday morning and slept very well. We then headed to the beach!! 

Here are some pictures from the first day. The place we stayed, Martinique on the Gulf, is on a wildlife refuge. The property is so gorgeous. Each house comes with a golf cart to drive to the beach. 

Our house! 

Our house was called "Limelight". How crazy is that?! One of my friends' blog who has Lyme is called Lymelight. When we pulled up and saw the name it made me laugh so much. The house was also a pretty green color.

View from the front door. The house was decorated so beautifully 

Looking from the living room to the kitchen

Screened in porch in the back of the house overlooking part of the wildlife refuge. 

The golf cart was huge!

Me in the golf cart

License plate on the golf cart

Looking from the kitchen to the screened in porch

Turtle steppingstones in the back yard.

Palm tree in the back yard

My room! So pretty

The boardwalk to the beach. One of the two pools on the property is right behind me in this picture

Boardwalk again

Of course we brought our Thunder flag to the beach! We put it out every day!

Here are a couple collages that I made from the first day. 

I will post more pictures soon!