3 Peanuts: Little Traditions and dolphins

I am sure all families who vacation annually at the same location do this too. But we have these little "traditions" at the beach. There is a silly thing we cook for breakfast one morning (and we only do it at the beach). There is a favorite restaurant or two we must visit each time (Cafe 30 A, Red Bar, Sugar Shak). We almost always have pizza on the beach the last night. And then there is the ice cream truck. The kids have always LOVED that the ice cream truck comes around our little beach neighborhood right after lunch. In fact, this year, when Kate got some money from Mimi and Aunt Dooney for her birthday, the first thing she said was she would use it for the ice cream truck!

She "treated" her brother, Harry with some of her birthday $.

{It might seem silly to many of you but we don't have the ice cream truck in our neighborhood at home so this is a beach memory for my kiddos:)}

And even though we have a few things we do every year, I also like for us to try some new things on vacation. This year, I booked a dolphin boat ride to Shell Island. I used this company, and I requested Captain Brian because I had read excellent reviews on trip advisor. Since there were 5 of us, we got a speed boat to ourselves which was really nice. You go out on the boat looking for dolphin and once you find some, you jump in the ocean with them. It is totally hit or miss though and you have to be prepared for that. For the first hour, we did not see any dolphins at all. We saw tarpon and a sea turtle. We snorkeled and went to Shell Island and got a few really cool shells. And even that was all really fun.

Look how gorgeous the water is here!!!

Then during the second hour, we saw dolphin. Kate jumped in the water but the current was strong and it is hard to swim with the life vest on. So, she did not get up close to the dolphins. Will did though. Harry almost did. But then I got really seasick and it was time to go in. These are not trained dolphins that people swim with at resorts or aquariums (which I am sure is really fun too). These were wild dolphins in the ocean. It was really cool.

Will got nice and close with this dolphin!

The dolphin in the last two photos above is "Chester." He is a very playful dolphin that hangs out in a particular spot and we saw him swimming and playing with some other people close-by. Will and Harry tried to get to him but they were caught in a bad current and could not move (between boat wakes and the waves).

If you are ever in the 30A area (or Panama City), I highly recommend this. It was really fun. And our Captain was great. He tried really hard to make sure we all had a great experience.

After the dolphin ride, we had lunch in Panama City at a place on the beach. Then we headed back to Seagrove and hit our beach....

Well Dave, Kate and I did. The boys napped.

Dave and Kate dug a big hole...

Then Kate sat in the hole and made drippy castles....good times:)

Finally, Harry (and his sous chef, Kate) made us Harry's world famous quesadillas and guacamole for dinner. We do not eat very healthy on vacation week;)