My 32nd Birthday

I had an awesome birthday weekend spending time with family and friends. We started out the weekend with a dinner at Cheesecake factory. My mom had never been and she was dying to go so she was more than happy to take me there for my birthday. Robert surprised me and invited our friends to come along too. It's always great to get together with our family and friends. After dinner, we headed to the Barons game. I've never been to the stadium (because I have no desire to go to that part of town) but it was Star Wars night and Bryson is obsessed with Star Wars so we had to take him. Before having Bryson, my birthdays were spent with my friends, staying up late and doing whatever we wanted to. Now, I would rather spend my birthday with my family, doing whatever makes them happy. Bryson had a blast! He was so happy the whole night and that's the best birthday present I could ask for. We didn't really watch much of the game because we honestly could care less about the Barons baseball team so we just walked around all night looking for all the Star Wars characters. I was so surprised at how awesome the costumes were. They were definitely the real deal. After the game was over, they had a huge fireworks show that was set to the music from Star Wars. Sadly the fireworks were too loud to hear the music, but the fireworks were pretty awesome.

On Sunday, we had dinner with Robert's family. We ate at Nino's in Pelham. I've been craving some New York style pizza and this was the closest place I could find that had it. It was pretty good, but still not the real thing. My birthday fell on a Monday this year; the first day of school. I never have worked/went to school on my birthday. It's one of the perks of having a summer birthday but now that schools start back way too early, it seems like it always starts around my birthday. Since I've never worked on my birthday, I took the day off. It was so nice spending the day with Bryson. We started off our day by watching The Price is Right. Bryson is always asking to watch it and since we work during the day it's like a treat for him to get to watch it when we are home. Then we had a lunch at Little Italy here in Helena. I was so excited to eat pizza but was disappointed this trip. After lunch we enjoyed a little shopping, a trip to Starbucks and an oil change. It was a nice relaxing day.

Dorsey Family Vacation 2014

For the past few years we have taken a big family vacation to the beach on Labor Day weekend. This year we decided to go on the 4th of July. We went to Santa Rosa Beach and stayed in the same condos we stayed at last year. We got down pretty early on the first day so everybody headed to the beach and pool before dinner. We ate at a place called Goatfeathers. It was OK. I don't like seafood so my options were limited. I got the chicken alfredo and everybody else got seafood. All Bryson wanted was crab legs so everybody shared with him.

 All loaded up and ready to go!

 Our view for the week!

He loved riding "shampoo"

The next day was the 4th of July! We spent the whole day at the beach. The water was so clear. Robert said they saw a small sting ray and there were a ton of little fish everywhere. We ate some yummy sandwiches on the beach so we didn't have to go back to the condo. We knew we would be up late so we tried to get Bryson to take a nap on the beach. No luck. He was too excited about playing in the ocean and the sand that he didn't want to take a nap. 

Before heading out to watch the fireworks, Amy cooked us a yummy spaghetti dinner. All of the fireworks shows started after 8:30 so we headed to the beach right after dinner. It's been a few years since we have been to the beach on the 4th of the July. Last time we went, Bryson was a year old and terrified of the fireworks. He has seen fireworks since then so we thought he would be excited. He wasn't. It was so sad. We really thought he would like them. We found our spot on the beach to watch all the shows and everybody around us were shooting fireworks. Bryson sat in Lola's lap and finally calmed down. Next thing we knew, he was asleep! He slept through all of the loud fireworks shows. It was so neat because where we sat we had people shooting fireworks right beside us but if you looked down the beach both ways, you could see these big fireworks shows everywhere!

The next day was another full day spent at the beach.  Bryson and Eli worked really hard to dig a hole to make a pool for all the fish we wanted to catch. They had 2 in their little pool. Bryson named them Star Wars and Han Solo. He also wanted to be buried in the sand. He thought it was hilarious. Then he wanted to bury Eli and Robert. We usually are at the beach on opening day of football season and have a shrimp boil to celebrate. There was no football game but we still wanted the shrimp boil. It was just as good as it always is! We really wanted to take Bryson to play putt-putt and go to the arcade so after dinner we all loaded up and drove to Destin to play mini golf, play in the arcade and ride go-carts. Bryson had fun playing mini golf, even though he had no idea what he was doing. We tried to play a quick game but the family in front of us was taking the game way too seriously! It was so late when we finished but everybody wanted to go ride the go-carts. The line was so long and Bryson was half asleep so we decided to take Bryson to the arcade instead. He had so much fun and won a ton of tickets!!!

The next day was our last full day on the beach so we wanted to stay as long as possible. This time Robert helped him dig a hole and he caught 2 more fish and named them Chewbacca and Princess Leia. The weather was amazing so we stayed at the beach all day. We wanted to go eat dinner in Panama City so we couldn't stay all day. We told Bryson to go into the ocean one more time and all he wanted to do was dance in the ocean. It was the cutest thing ever! For dinner we ate at Angelo's Steak House in Panama City. It was so good! After that we went to Pier Park to do a little shopping before heading back home. 

Before heading home, we had to get a family picture. One year we wore all black. Last year we wore white. This year we wanted to do something really awesome...Airbrush shirts! We all tried to chose the most awesome one we could find. I think it turned out pretty good!

We always have so much fun on our family vacations. Now we are counting down the days til our next one the week of Thanksgiving!