Family Travel

I have so many great memories of my grandparents at the beach. They were always at our annual seaside family reunions—in 15 years, not once were they absent. And they were your typical loving grandparents: always telling stories about when they were growing up, always spoiling all of us grandkids. They were awesome.

They’re not around anymore, and for a while the yearly family reunions stopped. Luckily, in the last few years, we’ve started the tradition again, and I’m making a point to capture those special moments between my kids and their grandparents. And the Alabama Gulf Coast has lots of opportunities for this. I have video footage and photographs of my parents playing with my kids on the beach, building sandcastles, fishing off of the pier, flying kites, and exploring the history at Fort Morgan. We even had a family portrait made on the beach by The Picture Man. Our meetups in Gulf Shores are one of the few times we get to see my parents, so we really try to make the most of our time there (lots to do there—check out www.thebeachiscalling.org).

My kids have lots of fun with their grandparents now, and I know one day they’ll appreciate being able to look back on the memories.

I have a friend who is taking her young baby on a beach trip this summer. I, of course, strongly urged her to head to the Alabama Gulf Coast. It wasn’t too hard to persuade her, and now they are in the midst of planning a little family trip down there.

This will actually be their first trip with the baby, and she’s a little nervous about how her baby will handle it (the car ride, the pack-n-play, the actual beach, etc.). I just told her that there is no way to know until they try, but there are things she and her husband can do to try to make events run as smooth as possible, such as arming themselves with as much baby entertainment as possible for the drive down and bringing familiar blankets and stuffed animals to help the baby sleep at night. Concerning the beach…some babies love it and some hate it! It helps to be flexible and realize that beach time may be limited. Having a backup plan of alternate places to spend time together as a family is a good idea (like the pool, a playground or the zoo).

It will definitely be an adventure, and my final piece of advice to my friend was to record the memories—these are the kind of photos and videos that will always be treasured (and that might win a free vacation for someone: www.thebeachiscalling.org).

The differences in how I used to spend spring break years ago and how I spend spring break these days are quite funny. When I was in college, the only necessary requirement when finding a hot spring break spot was that there had to be great bars and a thriving night life. My friends and I would spend the week partying, and then we’d go home.

My husband and I thought it would be fun to re-visit one of our old spring break spots during our first spring vacation after we were married. It was definitely entertaining: we sat on our hotel balcony at night and watched the young spring breakers parade up and down the street in their cars, their music pouring loudly out of the windows. We watched the flirting and the dancing and the various antics, including one streaking incident. Amusing, yes, but we felt pretty out of place. We began to realize that life was changing, and that type of getaway was no longer our scene.

Along came our first child a year later to finalize the transition. From that point on, vacations took on a new tone. We seek out more family-oriented destinations, which is what makes the Alabama Gulf Coast so great. I feel comfortable bringing my family there, and there are many activities that the kids enjoy.

Visit www.thebeachiscalling.org to learn more and to enter the Gulf Shores/Orange Beach contests.

As a child, one of my favorite things to do at the beach was collect seashells. I would spend hours walking along the shore, examing the various shell pieces, looking for that perfect whole shell. One time, during an evening walk with my family, I was so engrossed in what I was doing that I got ahead of the group and walked past our hotel—way past. Luckily my Dad was not too far behind. He had followed me the whole time to see how far I went before I realized I’d missed the hotel! He still teases me about that to this day.

Now I take my own kids on vacation, and I love to watch them enjoying the same activities. I walk with them along the beach, with the waves from the Gulf splashing at our feet. They get just as excited as I used to at the different seashells they find.

Perhaps a video of a seashell hunt along the Alabama Gulf Coast would be good to submit for the “Show Us Your Best Gulf Shores/Orange Beach Vacation Ever” contest? Be sure to enter this and other contests: www.myspace.com/algulfcoast.

We haven’t had a family reunion in a few years, and a buzz has recently started up that it’s time for everyone to get together again. The discussion is always the same: where we should meet, we should go somewhere different, maybe a cruise, etc. But inevitably, we always end up at the beach.

And that’s fine with me. It’s never let us down before. Everyone can do their own thing during the day, and at night we all get together for various family activities, everything from card tournaments to white elephant exchanges to good old fashioned beach parties.

The challenge has been accommodating our growing family. Years ago, we were able to fit everyone in one big house on the beach. Now that all the kids have grown up and have kids of their own, one house just doesn’t cut it. At the last family reunion, we had five beach houses right in a row! It was a blast.

Many a beach house can be found along the Alabama Gulf Coast, as well as condos and hotels. Visit www.thebeachiscalling.org for more information.