Birthday on the Beach

We spent Kyler's 3rd birthday on the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama where my parents own a vacation rental condo. They bought us plane tickets for Christmas. It was Kyler's first flight. We kept telling him he would be three when we go on the airplane. So as soon as we were boarded he turned to us and said, "I'm 3 now?!?!" We told him it would be a couple more days until his actual birthday.

His ears bothered him on one leg of the flight. He suddenly started crying and said, "I have ouchie!!!" while covering his ears. Luckily, I had packed fruit snacks and chewing on them must have done the trick.

We had a connection in Atlanta and had to change terminals so Kyler was excited to ride on the train.

Ky absolutely loved the beach. He liked the waves, although he was maybe a little afraid of the big ones. 

He wanted to be buried again and again.

He was even trying to bury himself.

The beach was awesome. It wasn't crowded at all so we had plenty of room to dig and play.

Kyler had a hard time keeping sand off of his hands. He would rinse them off but then couldn't help himself and would pick up two fistfuls of sand.

One of the days we were there, my dad rented a pontoon boat. Kyler loved helping Papa drive. We stopped at a restaurant called Pirate's Cove for a burger. (Side note: it was delish and supposedly where Jimmy Buffet wrote "Cheeseburger in Paradise.") While we were there, this pirate ship went by. The pirate spotted Ky on the beach and yelled "Argggg." Kyler hid behind Uncle Ment (Brent). We saw tons of dolphins in this little cove too.

On Kyler's actual birthday, he chose to visit a Go-Cart track (The Track). They had some other kiddie rides like this airplane. He was able to ride as a passenger on the go-carts.

His favorite part was the bumper boats. He could pretty much control them on his own and would get mad if we tried to do it.

After the go-cart track, we went and had dinner at a place called Lulu's (Jimmy's sister Lucy Buffet's restaurant). They brought out a huge birthday dessert that we shared. There were sailboats going by on this waterway where we sat and they had a huge area with lots of sand toys for the kids to play. The live music was good, too.

When we got back to the condo, we celebrated with candles and a DQ cake. One funny thing at the condo was that Kyler was constantly yelling, "Oh Dane-O" trying to find Brent's friend Dane who came along.

We had a lot of fun on our last day. We spent it on the beach.

Papa and Kyler were feeding the seagulls right out of their hands. Several people stopped to watch Kyler do this. It was pretty neat to see a kid that small holding up a cheese curl and actually letting a bird get close enough to grab it.

Of course he had to be buried again. This time we did it up to his neck.

We gave Kyler one of his birthday presents on his birthday. It was a Delta airplane set that he played with in the airport while we were waiting for our plane.

When our plane finally landed in Kansas City and everyone was waiting to depart, Kyler yelled, "We're back. Woo hoo!!!" Everyone around us was laughing. It was a great trip and Kyler may have had the most fun of all! He says his favorite part was the airplane.