Vacation - Road Trip with 4 kids!

We kicked off our summer with a family road trip! Our first stop was Nashville to visit friends. We went to the zoo in Nashville and played on this awesome playground.  It was definitely the best part of the zoo! There really weren't a lot of animals... And below is Matthew in his adorable hat that was too small! Apparently he has a bigger head than Joshua did!

The whole family by the elephants, which are somewhere in the background. Like I said, the playground was the best part of the zoo! Matthew is on Kevin's back in case you're wondering where he is.

Then we stopped at a random civil war museum, that turned out to be really neat. I think it was in Corinth, Mississippi.

Then we stopped at Tupelo Children's Mansion to meet Jacob, a boy we've been sponsoring, and get a tour. This is a wonderful place! Please consider sponsoring a child.  

We left Tupelo, headed for the Gulf Coast in Alabama! Another random road side attraction, a neat little waterfall.

The next stop was Caleb's favorite!  We toured the USS Alabama in Mobile.

There was also a submarine to tour, the USS Drum.  Joshua liked all the wheels and levers to turn!

We stayed the night on Dauphin Island.  Below is the picture of the kids seeing the ocean for the first time! I love this picture!

Beautiful sunset!

The next day we took a ferry across Mobile Bay to Gulf Shores, Alabama. Caleb loved the ferry!

We spent 2 nights in Gulf Shores. It wasn't exactly relaxing with 4 kids, but we did have fun on the beach. They were all a bit scared to go swimming, the waves were intimidating! We built sand castles and looked for shells.

I love this picture of Matthew!

Here are the kids on a dolphin cruise! We saw 3 baby dolphins, which is apparently a very rare thing!

On of our favorite attractions was Alligator Alley.  Kevin and I both held an alligator.  Caleb touched it so that Kevin would buy him a quarters worth of alligator food!  They also had several very large alligators, it was very fun and worth the money!

On our way back north, we stopped in Huntsville, AL to go to an air and space museum. Kevin and I thought it was awesome! The kids had fun too.

This is Caleb's souvenir. He found the biggest pine cone I've ever seen! It was at a random park in Alabama. We were surprised that Alabama and Mississippi had so many pine trees, even close to the Gulf.  We stopped at a lot of random parks to have picnics.  That's one way we kept the cost down, by eating sandwiches and snacks that we brought from home, and then we also stopped at a grocery store to re-stock.

We did go out to eat a few times. Our favorite place was a southern food buffet. My favorite thing was the craw-fish bisque. Kevin liked the apple cheese. There was also spinach souffle, sweet potato casserole, mac & cheese, gumbo, biscuits, blueberry muffins, and fried fish and shrimp, as well as a whole host of cold salads. Oh, and cheese grits! The kids were so well behaved that a local lady complimented us, made me feel good!

We had a crazy, great trip! Joshua did get a stomach bug at the end, so our drive home wasn't quite as fun... but he was a great little traveler. Now, time for summer fun!