Orange Beach, Alabama!

Last week, we took a little road trip to Alabama.  We selected Orange Beach as our spring break destination.  This exotic spot was about 3.5 hours from New Orleans.  It was actually very close to Florida.  We decided to head to Orange Beach to avoid some of the "spring break" scene in nearby Pensacola.  But I ended up bumping into one of my Loyola students in the grocery store at the beach anyway.  Sometimes there is no escape!


This was Kiran's first trip to Alabama, so we took our time and stopped to see some sights along the way.  We stopped for lunch in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  We tried hard to find a scenic park overlooking the water.  We wandered a ways from the highway and ended up at the town's little league park.  Kiran happily ate his lunch in the bleachers and we cleaned up in the swank bathrooms at the nearby tennis courts (granite counters & tiled floors!).  Our next pitt stop was at the USS Alabama Battleship in Mobile.  Kiran insisted on trying on all the skippers hats in the gift shop.  We were too cheap to tour the battleship, but we did walk around the grounds and enjoyed the view of Mobile bay.  The last leg of our trip looked short on the map, but actually took a while.  Kiran was pretty patient but got antsy towards the end of the drive.  I used up all of my distraction techniques (singing, reading, tickling, etc) and we were both ready to cry when we finally reached Orange Beach!  We all slept well that night and were eager to explore the area the next day.  

Kiran had a lot of fun at the beach in the morning.  I made sure to give him a good slathering of sunscreen and he wore his cute little surf shirt and board shorts.  His yellow sun hat also made an appearance.  When he first touched the sand with his feet, he walked up on his tippy toes.   Then he settled down and of course he wanted to put the sand in his mouth.  We walked him right up to the water so the waves could trickle up and touch his feet.  I thought this was a great idea, but the cold water and the unfamiliar sound of the waves made him upset.  Who knew we would have tears at the beach?!  Kiran was much happier observing the waves from above.  How cute is this?