Anniversary Trip to Destin

Russ and I share our wedding anniversary date with our friends, John & Staci.  They've been married 5 years longer than us, and on our 20th & 25th anniversaries, we found ourselves in the middle of a Covid world.  We celebrated that day by eating outdoors at a restaurant in Lawrence after watching our boys play baseball.  But we said we should do something bigger at some point when things settled down.  Earlier this summer when Staci and I were watching our boys play summer league basketball, we started talking again about this and found some cheap Allegiant flights to Destin on our anniversary weekend.  It sounded like a perfect 23rd and 28th anniversary trip!

We got dinner at the new KCI before our flight (and funny story that we were the LAST ones on the plane even though we were to our gate over 30 minutes early. . . and we almost lost our luggage on the way. It was an exciting start to our getaway!). 

It was an uneventful flight and we made it to the Destin airport.  

Staci and I were laughing at our twinning hubbies.

We made it to our resort after dark, but still walked around to check things out and put our toes in the ocean.

We stayed up until our anniversary, August 5!

Our regular hotel room was upgraded to a family suite, which was entirely unnecessary for the two of us, but kind of fun nonetheless!  There were bunk beds that I'm sure our kids would have enjoyed, and an awesome master bedroom also.

The living room was large with a kitchenette and pull-out couch (the place would've easily slept our family), and did I mention there were two bathrooms? And AMAZING showers. I took several showers each day because they were so nice.

We were on the 5th floor and the views were awesome from there.

We started our anniversary morning with some breakfast from Starbucks and then wasted no time finding sand and water.  The sand was seriously like powder and the water was stunningly beautiful!

We caught up with John and Staci and rented some bikes to do a little bike tour of the 30A area of Destin.  During our ride, we stopped in to see a beautiful open house. And we dreamed about buying it and being this close to the beach all the time!

We rode to Grayton Beach, where we watched as 4-wheel drive vehicles put fishing boats directly in the ocean.  No boat ramps needed here!  We were thankful for those clouds, which kept the temperatures slightly more bearable.

When we made it back to the resort, we found some yummy drinks by the pool. . .

. . . and then the skies opened up and gave us an afternoon of rain -- that's what to expect when in Florida!  We hung out at the indoor pool for awhile and then went to the balcony to watch the rain.

The resort actually cleared the entire pool deck.  It was crazy to see it completely empty.  Also crazy how HARD it rained all afternoon.

Eventually it cleared and we went for a walk around the resort.

Russ tried to make Calvin jealous by showing other lifeguarding opportunities, and an adorable little seagull greeted us post-storm.

We got ready for dinner and took some anniversary pictures on the balcony.

24th installment of the cheesy green dress picture! (When we thought our luggage was lost, I was most sad thinking this dress and tradition might be lost forever!).

We went to dinner at one of John & Staci's favorite places, the Shunk Gulley.

This restaurant did have "oyster bar" in the name, so Russ had to get the oysters.  John ordered some delicious crab claws as an appetizer, and I enjoyed a yummy mahi.

After dinner, there was live music.  Russ got the guy to play John & Staci's song, "Wonderful Tonight," and he was really good!  We got our anniversary dance in.

We made it back to our resort just in time for the fireworks.  Yes, we had fireworks on the beach to celebrate our anniversary!

Russ also created some romantic sand art for us :)  -- in case you're wondering, it has our initials and wedding date.

What an awesome anniversary day we had!!  We got a good night's sleep and went hiking on Sunday morning and a nearby state park.

The craziest thing about this hike was the sand!  It was the same powdery sand as the beach (just not quite as clean).  Sand and pinecones, all together.

We worked up quite a sweat on our hike and couldn't wait to hit this cool water!  It was SO clear and beautiful.  It's very apparent how these waters got the name "Emerald Coast."  We had a great time jumping waves and hanging out in the water, and then we played some intense beach volleyball before we went to the pool.

Sunday evening we ate at the Crab Trap, a restaurant right on the beach, and home of the World's Best Tuna Dip (or so said the airplane with the advertisement banner at our resort all day!).

As it turned out, we all agreed the advertising was spot-on! The smoked tuna dip was seriously delicious!!  As were our crab cakes, drinks, and everything else we had.  The Crab Trap was fantastic!

Once our bellies were way over-full, we walked out the back door to the beach to watch the sunset.

What a cool restaurant!

When we got back to the resort, we joined some of the families "crabbing" on the sand.  There were so many of these little guys scurrying about -- They were so cute!

Our final day in Destin, Russ and I started early to take a little sunrise drive.  We decided a vacation together really wouldn't be complete without at least one 4 a.m. wake up to drive somewhere!  

I didn't know where we were going, but Russ said he had a surprise for me.  And did he ever! My man took me to a very special place: the Highest Point in Florida!  And this isn't just ANY highest point -- it's the lowest highest point in the United States!  Russ always has some crazy surprises up his sleeve.

Russ signed the visitors' notebook: "It's no Mt. Sunflower."

We drove on to pretty Lake Jackson in Florala (a very creatively-named town right on the border of the two states). Good thing it didn't break the bank to use this park!

We sent these two pictures to the kids, as another lifeguarding opportunity for Calvin and "Sweet Home Alabama" since the kids haven't been to this state yet.

We spent another glorious day in the pool and ocean, relaxing and enjoying our time together.  Before we knew it, we had to head back to reality.  

It was great that we could facetime the kids several times while we were gone, but we were also excited to get back home to them.  It was a perfect anniversary getaway with our favorite anniversary buddies.  I'm so thankful we were able to have this time to celebrate!  We are already thinking about what we should do in a couple of years for our 25th and 30th. . .