Free Vacation at the Beach!

They insisted they swim in all three of the hotels pools. Here they are lounging around the pool.

Landon & Chris taking a little nap poolside.


Whitney and Gavin loved going up to the 15th floor to look out the windows.

Gavin found a real live Marco to play Marco Polo with at the pool! He and Marco became good little buddies during our stay.

I am really annal about sun exposure so Landon spent most of his time indoors with one of us. After 5 pm we brought him down for a little bit. Here he is dipping his toes in the surf for the first time. Every time the waves would come he would pull up his feet.

This past weekend we enjoyed a pretty much free vacation at the Destin Hilton which is located right on the beach. The Army was holding a marriage retreat for couples where they paid for our hotel stay, food and provided child care while we were in class. You can't beat that! I was a little skeptical about the quality of our free food but it was really good! Whitney said it was the nicest hotel she has ever stayed at. She was quite impressed with the Hilton! The childcare providers were right across the hall from where our classes were held. We opted to keep Landon with us since we were worried about illness and he is still content to be held all the time. Though the Chaplain kept "encouraging" us to take advantage of the free childcare. =) What I found really interesting though not surprising was that the classes were largely based on Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People series of books. I have not read these books but I know he is LDS. Basically they were telling us to have date night, FHE, family councils, sets goals and think generational. I can't say the classes were all that enlightening for us but we did enjoy our free time. The chaplain also seemed to consider himself quite the Romeo and dispensed lots of romantic tips for the husbands. We have gone on several free vacations during our time in the Army. Definitely one of the perks! Scroll down to check out my beach collages.