I survived Hurricane Gustav!

We've been planning a Labor Day weekend vacation to this little beach resort near Gulf Shores AL for a long time, so when news of Hurricane Gustav began appearing, we were very bummed that we might have to change our plans. However, we hadn't had a vacation since February and greatly needed to get away, and since reports were that it may not even hit until Tuesday (when we would be back home) and that the location would be west of us, we went for it.

Our vacation was a blast. The boys had lots of fun. The resort is extremely kid friendly elegent at the same time. So, the boys felt right at home and we didn't have people in cartoon costumes all around us (though we are looking forward to going to Disneyworld in a couple of months).

Though we were originally scheduled to check out on Monday and begin our drive back home, we stayed the extra day while the hurricane hit so that we wouldn't be driving through the middle of it in Mississippi and Louisiana. Then we drove home all day yesterday. We thought about driving home a day early, but we had heard that all of LA was without gas and the roads were a mess. So - much better to be holed up in a comfortable resort than stranded on a highway with 2 toddlers! Some of Gulf Shores evacuated, so all the gas stations were empty on Sunday. I think that is what made us the most nervous, but they were selling gas again by the next evening - right after the storm hit.

All in all, we're very glad we went and now we have an even better story to tell. The resort was a beautiful southern style grounds with large oak trees full of Spanish moss, magnolias, duck pond, croquet lawn, pool with water slide and beach style entry area, and of course the beach itself.

We took tons of pictures, and I haven't gone through them all but here are a few:

Mom and the boys sitting on one of the grand trees on the grounds:

Building sand castles in a sand castle building class they had:
Dancing to fiddle music in the lobby. For the rest of our stay, they were known as "the dancing boys" by the staff and some of the guests.
Here's Hurricane Gustav - not too bad where we were. There were several of us crazy folks out there on the sea wall taking pictures. We were somwehat protected by being in Mobile Bay instead of directly on the Gulf.