Gulf Shores 2011

I always find picture-heavy posts daunting, so that's why it took me so long to get this up! The whole Lambes clan traveled to Gulf Shores, AL for our second summer vacation there on May 15. We drove through the night and Orion miraculously slept almost the whole way! I don't really sleep in the car so I was so thankful when we were finally able to get into our condo and I got to take a nap! Our vacation was overall very relaxing and fun- the kids were great and we all enjoyed being together for a solid week.

These first few pictures were from our family photo shoot... we were going to use the same professional photographer we used last year, but Orion ended up getting sick with a fever (it was a rough couple days for him but he took it like a champ and got better on his own) that day so we had to cancel. Instead we just used Emiley's nice digital SLR camera and a friend (another family we're close with from our church was there at the same time as we were), and the pictures turned out great!


I love this picture of Ellie and Orion. Beautiful beach babies.


The whole family! It was so nice to spend so much time together. I wish it happened more often!!


The sunshine really wore Orion out! He took two naps many of the days we were there which never happens at home! In this picture he'd fallen asleep on the car ride to a restaurant for lunch and not only stayed asleep when we got him out of the car, but slept almost all the way through lunch. If you know Orion you know that this is NOT normal!! He was beat!


Ellie and Orion loved their wagon rides! Their grandparents had SO much fun taking their babies out and exploring the resort.


I love this picture too. Ellie looks so sweet and Orion just looks like trouble.


Grandma and Grandpa snuggling with their babies. This was the day O was sick so he spent a lot of time watching Boz.

Of course we all spent most of our time enjoying the sunshine! We had perfect weather... it was cool when we got there but hot when we left, so we got to enjoy mostly very warm but not toooo hot weather. It was nice having so many people around to make sure the kids didn't swim away...


Ellie was a little fishy... she LOVED the ocean and wanted to be in it all the time! Orion couldn't make up his mind... he liked the surf and even being out in the water with Daddy, but I think the waves scared him.


This family's talent it digging big holes. I know, it's a valuable skill. Orion only wanted to fill the holes back in...


Fun in the water with Uncle Jon and Daddy.


Cute :) And I'm happy to say that neither Orion or I (this is miraculous) got a sunburn!!


Sand is so much fun! And also apparently delicious... :/ Orion definitely ate a few hand-fulls of sand that week.


One of the highlights of this year's vacation was visiting "The Little Zoo that Could." I think it's actually called the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo or something, but that's what the sign said and I think it's cute and appropriate. It really was a small zoo, but it was a really good one! The animals were close and most of them were even awake and moving around! And there were lots of opportunities to touch and feed animals. O and Ellie got to go into the petting zoo and pet goats, sheep, and bunnies. Orion followed this bunny around for so long and finally got to pet it!


Making friends with a goat. He also gave it snuggles :)



My favorite part was getting to play with lemurs!! They were so cute... the black and white one was such a cuddler... you could just hold it and rub its tummy and it was happy. And the orange one was more of a climber but really liked Nathan.


So sweet! They made little chirping noises.

Shoulder lemur!

Vacation went so quickly! It was tons of fun. There are more pictures on my facebook if you're interested. Thanks for reading!