Last Day in Sunny Destin!

Saturday it was time to go home ... but we were in no hurry as the forecast was for 83 degrees and set to be the warmest day of our whole trip! Who wants to drive on a beautiful day when you can be at the pool instead? Let's drive when it's dark and enjoy the heck out of our last day!


We packed up and got out of the condo right at 10 when we were due out, which is also when the pool opens. Spent a couple hours soaking up the beautiful day and letting the kids have one last swim before the long ride home. We pretty much had the pool all to ourselves for about 90 minutes ... most families in the complex were either hitting the road for home or had just arrived the night before and not up and moving around yet.

After a long game of "Monkey in the Middle" with a tennis ball, Drew got Abby working on her cannon ball technique. It was a riot, and I love this pic. Check out the pony tail action and the tightness of the leg tuck. I give it a 7.5 and know that she'll be scoring solid 9's and 10's by the next pool visit!


We used the clubhouse to change into some dry clothes and get ready for lunch. Then it was off to have a 2nd round of pizza at Mellow Mushroom for lunch. We hit a couple more souvenier stores and Drew finally got the little painted turtles he has wanted to buy forever. TJ has one in a tank in his room that we found at the river, and the kids have always loved the ones for sale in Destin. Drew snagged 2 so they would not be lonely. HA Their shells are maybe about the size of a silver dollar. I'm sure they will grow fast like our river one has!

So it was lunch in Destin, FL ... then we stopped for dinner in Nashville, TN. Breakfast here in Tremont, IL after arriving overnight ... and the unpacking has begun! Back to work and school tomorrow, and we're still enjoying the fun week we had and a little bronze glow from the sun! Drew is basking in the avalanche of letters from Carthage College confirming his scholarship monies ... as wonderful as it was to hear the words on the phone, it's nice to get that letter confirming the 20k a year! I'll take him back to Kenosha two weeks from today to register for his freshman fall semester classes on Apr 14!

Friday in Destin

A gorgeous beach day on Friday ... so gorgeous and relaxing, I forgot to take the camera! :-)

The beach was still offering up some pretty big and fun waves for playing in the surf, so the whole gang (minus me!) went out to play. The waves were curling like big Hawaii surf waves and they had a blast. Two waves were big enough to curl right over 6' tall Drew's head! YIKES!

We hit Pompano Joe's for a 2nd wonderful dinner and did a little packing of the suitcases on Fri night (sob, sob)

Thursday in Destin

Another beautiful sunny day ... with more wind, which meant lots more waves, and big ones, for boogie boarding and playing in the surf!

We spent the day on the beach and had a very fun and relaxing day.

After returning from the beach we headed down to the harbor to walk around the docks a bit and have dinner at AJ's. Now we're back in the condo to relax before tomorrow's big day on the beach! Sounds like another beautiful day with less wind.

Not sure when we will head out on Sat ... will depend on the weather here, if it's nice we will stay later into the day and drive home overnight. Too soon to think about ending our perfect week now!

A Beautiful Destin Wednesday

A very gorgeous day on the beach yesterday!

Lots of fun and sun ... TJ and Abby love the skim boards!

Fun in the surf for Drew & Abby ...

and for TJ and his buddy, Jared ...

Had a beautiful evening to walk around Baytowne Wharf for dinner at Rum Runners last night. And enjoyed a frozen Rum Runner as well!

Here's a short video of TJ skimboarding,

click here if you can't see the You Tube box,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVGhmkkaJs

Carbon copy of yesterday here on tap in Destin for Thursday ... more pics later!

Tuesday in Destin

We had a fun and relaxing Tuesday at the pool yesterday.

The weather was a little cooler but not too cool to enjoy the pool and swim a bit. Abby must have jumped 1000 times to daddy. The hot tub was quite packed at times though!

We did dinner at a beachside restaurant and enjoyed that a lot. The kids meals were served on frisbees, so TJ and Abby have a new toy for the beach today.

We have run into 4 other Tremont families here ... 2 of them teachers at Tremont HS and also the Tremont superintendent. Also a few other families from Morton here in the complex, and many IL license plates. A good place to migrate out of Central IL right now, I guess! Today and through the rest of our stay are going to be great beach days with temps near 80. Looking forward to it!

BIG (!!) Scholarship Update!

We interrupt this vacation blog for big college news! We received a phone call from Carthage College tonight with the final news Drew has been so patiently waiting for ... the results of the competition for the Fine Arts/Music Dept scholarship dollars!

He auditioned for the Music Dept when we were in Kenosha for the Lincoln competition in Feb and he felt that it went very, very well. The head of vocal music was in the audition and told Drew he really hoped that he would be coming to Carthage to sing.

The Carthage School of Fine Arts is offering Drew $10,000 a year in scholarship dollars, renewable for all 4 years for a total of $40,000 to come be part of the Carthage Music Dept! That on top of the other monies we already knew about for his ACT score ($8000 x4), being a Lincoln finalist ($1000 x4) and the Alumni Association dollars ($1500 x4) brings his annual scholarship total to $20,500 ... so $82,000 for the four years!

We are so very proud of him. WOO HOO DREW! :-)

Monday in Destin

Cooler day today (62-ish) so we tried out the pool for a bit this morning, but decided it would be a good day to do some shopping, running around and have lunch out.


We ate at Fudpucker's and saw the gators (picture) and then hit Destin Commons Mall, which has nice shops.

TJ enjoyed sticking his head in the jaws of the giant shark at the Bass Pro Shop the most :-)

Think we're going out for pizza tonight at our fave place here, the Mellow Mushroom, http://www.mellowmushroom.com/ since we had seafood at lunch.

Sounds like it's warming up a bit at home this week! Hope it sticks for our return!

Egg Hunt on the Beach!

Happy Easter! The kids started out their morning with an egg hunt in the condo, then we moved over to the beach for another one.

The beach attendants put out 600 eggs for the kids staying here at Maravilla, and it was lots of fun!

Now we're back in the condo fixing breakfast and relaxing. Hope your Easter is relaxing and enjoyable too!

Saturday on the beach!

We had a fun and relaxing first day on the beach! The kids had a great time trying to master the skim boards in the shallow surf area. Abby cracked us up with her intense attempts to get that board moving, and she did a pretty good job!

TJ and his buddy Jared must have put 100 miles on today, running up and down the beach. They dug deep holes and made forts and castles and just had a generally awesome time. They always do, no matter where they are as long as they are together

Last night's dinner was at my fave restaurant (Pompano Joe's) and tonight's was at Mitch's fave place, The Crab Trap. Two great nights of fresh Gulf seafood. Can't beat it! Abby has chowed on Mahi Mahi and broccoli, her favorite meal of all!

Our friends, Doug & Gina, joined us today and will be with us all week. We are having fun showing them around Destin since they haven't been here before.

Tomorrow morning at 8:30 there is an Easter egg hunt on the beach. I'm sure it will be packed with kids and crazy ... so it should be good for some funny pics! We did enjoy seeing a guy do this neat Easter-inspired sand sculpture today ...

Hello from Destin!

Just a quick note (without pics, sorry!) to let you know we have arrived safely in Destin. We are unpacked, Drew and I did grocery shopping and Easter Bunny shopping while Mitch, TJ and Abby went swimming ... and it is a gorgeous day here to relax and enjoy!

Another Tremont family is here, and their son and TJ are best buds. We ended up in the condo next door to each other completely by accident. Could not have planned it better!

Had a good trip down but did have 3 delays that cost us a lot of time ... one construction delay that had us crawling for 30 minutes, then another farther south that left us at a standstill for the better part of an hour. Both in IL, gee imagine that. Then an accident north of Birmingham about 4am ... so the trip down was longer than normal, but fortunately safe and uneventful for us.

We're here at the condo 9 days have we have wi-fi, so you can count on lots of pics and updates as the week progresses!

One bit of good news right before we left ... Drew did get another call from Carthage about scholarship dollars, but not yet the Music Dept one he is waiting for. He submitted an essay to the Alumni Association about his great-grandparents (Mitch's grandparents) being alumni of Carthage ... and he won a $1500/yr scholarship in the competition! So that adds $6000 to his scholarship pot, bringing the total now being offered to him by Carthage to $42,000 over 4 years! We should hear the Music Dept audition results soon as well.

Heart of IL Honor Band

Drew had the honor and pleasure of being named to the Heart of Illinois Honor Band last week ... here are a few pics that I swiped from the THS Band web site.

Click on any pic to see a larger version. You can see Drew's new (short) haircut pretty well in this one. HA

Music has been very good to Drew and a big part of his life. I'm so glad he found his interest and niche there!

Partial Scholarship News!

Drew has waited patiently for weeks ... and finally news is coming in on the Eureka and Carthage scholarship competitions.

First, the good news from Eureka College. He is being offered $17,000 in merit scholarship dollars, but did not receive the full tuition award. That amount covers a little less than one year's tuition, room & board. He was proud to be in the top 10 to be considered for 1 of 6 awards, and is an alternate if one of the 6 students selected would decide to decline the scholarship due to another offer from another school, etc. The winners have 5 days to make their decision, so if that were to happen, he would receive a call next week or the week after. He's ok with all of that, and knows it was a special honor to be part of the competition, and especially in the top 10.

Next partial news came from Carthage College today, finally. We expect another letter in the next few days outlining the rest ... but for right now with merit scholarship dollars and an extra scholarship for being a finalist in their big competition, he is being offered $36,000 over four years. That amount covers about 1.5 years of tuition, so that is good. He did not receive one of the full tuition scholarships at Carthage.

Now we wait for the next letter from Carthage ... which will inform him of any additional scholarship dollars awarded to him by the Music Department based on his vocal audition he did when we visited in February. It's possible that award could cover the equivalent of another year's college expenses, so we are anxiously waiting to see what shakes out there!

All in all, he's good with the news and relieved to just know and head off on spring break without a lot of worry over it. Of course we are hoping that the Music Dept letter comes from Carthage tomorrow before we leave for Destin, or else we will not see it until we return on March 30. We shall see! :-)

A Busy Week Ahead!

We are just a few short days away from heading to Destin for Spring Break! Since the boys are out of school on Fri (and actually get out of school at 11:30am on Thurs) ... we may pull out of here a day early and head South on Thursday night. Just need to make a couple quick decisions about taking Fri off, but it's looking more likely we'll leave Thurs night.

Drew has a big week ahead with scholarship announcements. We had hoped to hear from at least one of the schools this past week ... but nothing yet. We do know that Carthage has mailed all of their announcement letters (which is how everyone is notified) and so we have anxiously checked the mailbox the last couple of days. From what he knows about when they were mailed ... it would seem that tomorrow afternoon there should be a letter in the mailbox from Carthage outlining what he will receive there based on academic merit, plus monies from the Music Dept. Or if he were to land the big full tuition scholarship, the letter would tell us that as well. He also expects his call from Eureka this week to let him know if he was selected for that scholarship from the phone interview. I just hope it all comes together before we leave for FL so that part can be over and he can enjoy his break. It has been a nail biting wait for news! :-)

Teen Conference

Here's a link to a local news story about a teen conference Drew is involved with ... he got a few seconds of on-camera time on the 6pm news tonight. You can read the text of the story and then click "watch this video" to see what aired here ...

http://www.week.com/news/local/16560751.html

For those of you who haven't seen him since he lost the long hair look ... you might not recognize him! :-)

According to the "teasers" on tv this evening, they are doing the story again at 10pm news time, maybe even expanding on it a bit. Will add the link if there is more video of him later on.

Bon Voyage!

Mom and I are off to celebrate her 75th bday on a cruise ... here is the blog I set up to keep all of her friends informed of the day's happenings!

http://gilpingirls.blogspot.com/

We're back next Sat night, March 8. Not sure if I will post here at all during the trip, probably just on the cruise blog.