beach trip 2024

 

Hi, friends! I'm still not up for blogging much, but I wanted to share about my trip to Florida a week and a half ago. Happy reading!

My friend Dedee has a house in Destin, and she's always so gracious to invite me to go with her. I've been when there were three of us, five of us, four of us, and the last two times it's just been the two of us. Those times are my favorite, especially this time! With the events that are going on in my life right now (in addition to my dad dying), I was in need of some one on one girlfriend time, and for four full days, she poured godly wisdom into me. I've never been so thankful for her friendship in all of my life, because while I left home feeling distraught and broken, I came home still feeling distraught, but also hopeful. I'll tell more of the story someday, but it'll be a long time before I can talk about it here. 

So, on Thursday morning, I drove to her house, we loaded the car, along with her sweet husband who helped us, then we left. Eight hours later, we arrived! We made three stops this time, then we unpacked and settled in for our time there. We had Mexican food the first night, since it's just right down the street from her house. 

I was falling asleep by eight thirty the first night we were there, so I went to bed and slept in until about six thirty the next morning. We travel well together, because we both like to go to bed early and are early risers. She would get up and walk her dog, and I'd stay there and have my quiet time. It was a nice view, right?

I always take my own food when I travel, so I'd drink my breakfast and lunch, we would snack if we were hungry, and then we'd go back in to get ready and eat dinner early, because it's Destin in the summer. On the first day, we sat out on the beach all day long. It was heavenly! We decided to walk on the beach at one point, so we walked down to this rock jetty. At the jetty, you turn and go right down to another part of the beach to this lagoon area that we swam in. It felt amazing! Because of the way it's bordered on three sides, waves and sharks don't enter into that part of the water. Also, let it be known that I haven't swam in the ocean since I was eighteen years old. I could have stayed there all day!

That night we had dinner at The Marina Cafe. If you're there at five, you can get a table at the bar, and you have access to the less expensive bar menu. I had blackened shrimp tacos and that amazing slice of vanilla key lime cheesecake to top it off. It was incredible!

The second day was more of the same: up early, quiet time, packed my beach bag, sat on the beach all day. I alternated between reading my book and listening to an Audible book. I can only read/listen to certain things right now, so I was having to pick and choose. We went in at three, I showered and dressed, then we went to Harbor Docks for dinner. I had blackened grouper, which was as amazing as any other thing I'd eaten all week. After dinner we went to the Destin Commons and saw Inside Out 2. It was so good! 

I went to bed early again on Saturday, and when I woke up on Sunday, I knew it would be an easy day. The plan was to go to the beach for as long as the rain held off, then we'd planned to order pizza for dinner that night and pack to get ready to leave early the next morning. I woke up with a little bit of urgency to start getting things ready to leave the next day, so I actually went ahead and started packing before I even went downstairs that day. 

In a strange turn of events, that afternoon Graham called to tell me that I needed to come home immediately because of my dad. I was working on getting a flight out, but we ended up leaving less than an hour after we heard from him. I've never moved so fast in all of my life, and I was grateful that Dedee was willing to drive home that night. While she showered and packed, I cleaned and shut down the house for her, then took all our stuff downstairs. We were on the road by five thirty, made it home by one thirty a.m. Monday morning. I drove home, then rode to the hospital with Graham and Drew. (Graham was driving my car.) I'm glad I made it back home in time to see my dad a little more before he passed away on Tuesday morning, and though my trip ended in a mad dash, I'm so glad I had a few days away to start the healing process of my heart. I'm nowhere near there yet, by the way, but that was a great start to the days/weeks/months ahead. 

Thanks for reading my blog, friends, and for your many prayers over my sons and me. Words can't express my gratitude. Love to all!

(I'm linking up with Joanne today for this blog post.)