Destin 2008

Every year the Pharr family loads up and drives down to Destin for Fall Break. This year was a little different because everyone wasn't able to go. We sure missed those back in Nashville and wished they could have been there. The last time we were in Destin was in March when Caden was just 2 months old and Caleb was 15 months old. Let's just say this drive was very different from the one in the spring. We ended up stopping 4 times and getting there in 8 hours. Before kids, we could usually do the drive in a little less than 7 hours. Not anymore. And let me just tell you that an extra hour with kids REALLY makes a difference. All in all, it wasn't too bad and we couldn't wait to get there and hit the beach. The first day we were there we beached it up while the boys were golfing. A HUGE thank you to aunt Lacy for help with carting the kiddos and all of their stuff to the beach. Once we got settled, we had a blast. Caleb and Caden loved the sand. The water was a little cold and the waves were a little too big to enjoy, so we spent most of our time playing in the sand and filling up the buckets with water. That is pretty much what we did every day. We were daring a couple of nights and went out to eat with the whole group...college kids included. All I can say is that it was very interesting and I am so thankful we had such patient and fabulous servers. :) We couldn't have had better weather while we were there. It was sunny and warm every day. It was kind of hard to come back home to a high of only 60 degrees.
The only mishap we had was on the way home. We stopped for gas and let Caleb get out of the car to run off some of his energy. (For those of you with toddler boys, I'm sure you will understand.) *** Moms out there, I have a question for you...if you were letting your kids run around in a parking lot to play, and you had at least 5 hours to go in the car before you got home and you saw your child running toward a pile of dirt, in flip-flops none the less, what would be your reaction? A.)Would you let them get all in it and get dirty, or B.)would you divert their attention to something else to keep them clean? Also, think about what your husband would do? I am convinced most of the men would have acted like Shane and not cared. Either way, what happened next was a disaster. I was gone inside for not even 3 minutes when I came back out to find Caleb screaming. What could have happened? Well, at first I figured he just fell down or something, but then I realized Shane was brushing stuff off Caleb's legs. That's right...the mound of dirt was not just a mound of dirt. It was a fire ant mound and my poor little baby was attacked. Of course when I asked Shane what he was thinking letting him go over there, his response was, "I just thought it was dirt." So, how many of your husbands would have done the same thing? I would love to know. As one friend's mom puts it, she says when men do or say things like this, she just considers it a genetic defect. In the end, everything turned out fine and thankfully, Caleb didn't have a severe allergic reaction.
Overall, we had a wonderful trip and can't believe it went by so fast. We can't wait to go back. By the way, the trip home was much easier. The boys slept for the last four hours and we only stopped twice. I guess all of the fun in the sun wore them out.





This is Caleb from last year. It is amazing to see how much they change in a year. Do he and Caden look anything alike?