Beachin'

White sand, cold can, koozie in my hand, just a summertime strollin'
Chillin', breezin', sippin', singin' whoa 

Beachin'

(Beachin' by Jake Owen)

That's what I've been up to over the past week, and it was much needed!!

(This post is extremely long and full of pictures, so please bear with me)

Last year, my friends & I started throwing around the idea of going on a trip this summer after I graduated.  When Jessica found an awesome deal on Groupon for Edgewater Beach & Golf Resort in Panama City Beach, Florida, we jumped at it!

Jessica flew in from Chicago on Wednesday morning, and I met her at the airport..

Then we hopped on another flight to Florida, where Alicia picked us up  :-)  We landed late in the afternoon, so we checked into our villa...

The view from our balcony

...and then headed straight to a nearby grocery store to stock up on food and adult beverages.  By the time we got back, it was getting late and we hadn't eaten supper yet, but we decided to take a quick little stroll around the resort property to check out our home for the next few days.

(Photo courtesy of Jessica)

After taking in our first sunset, we hopped back in the car and went to Hook'd to get a bite to eat.  The restaurant is located at the end of Pier Park, and we were able to sit at a table right along the beach.  It was already dark by this time, but we could hear the waves and see people out on the beach hunting for crabs.  It was a very cool experience, and the food was great!

The next morning, we made breakfast and ate out on our balcony where we watched turtles swim around the fountain below.

After we got breakfast cleaned up, we finally headed to the beach!

After a few hours of playing in the waves and soaking up some sun on the beach, we decided to head back to our room and make some sandwiches for a late lunch.  Afterwards, we hit up the pool instead of going back to the beach, since we could actually swim and relax in the water without being pummeled by waves.

Paradise

Oh, and there was also a cheer camp going on while we were there, so every now and then we'd see a group of junior high cheerleaders.  While we were laying in the lounge chairs by the pool, some of them came storming through, cheering "Go Freshmen!"

We stayed in and made our own supper that night, and I turned on the TV while we were cooking.  The Cardinals were playing in Tampa Bay, and the game happened to be on...we really were in paradise ;-)

We ate supper out on the balcony again and enjoyed the view.

We decided to get ice cream from Edgie's Corner Market on the resort after supper.  We walked around the property for a while to check out the "nightlife" since we could hear music playing, but the pool deck had turned into a night club for all the little cheerleaders..and then the karaoke started, and it was more than we cared to listen to.  So we headed back to our room and finished the night watching "13 Going on 30" on TV.

Yes, we're getting old...

The next day, we were all sunburned and the radar looked like there was rain on the way, so we went shopping instead of going back to the beach.  We went back to Pier Park to do some souvenir shopping, and Jessica got a henna tattoo.

(Photo courtesy of Jessica)

Then we ate lunch at Dick's Last Resort, where we were prepared to be insulted.

When we were done souvenir shopping, we went to Coconut Creek Family Fun Park to play mini golf and try to find our way through a giant maze.

I think the fastest time for the maze from the day before was 16 minutes..but we got stumped and kept going in circles, so it took us about 25 minutes.  We were glad to be done when we found our way to the end of it ;-)

After our eventful afternoon, we took it easy and lounged out by the pool again.  The sunset was gorgeous that night (and pretty much every other night, too), so we found a spot on the beach later on to watch it.

Frolicking and finding seashells

We wrote our names in the sand, but it didn't stick around long.

We finished off the night with some ice cream again and then settled in to watch "Friends" reruns.  We're so exciting, aren't we??

Saturday was our last full day in Florida, and we made the most of it.  We lounged by the pool closest to our villa (the resort had 11 pools) in the morning before eating lunch.

(Photo courtesy of Jessica)

Then we drove over to Captain Anderson's Marina to go on a Shell Island and Dolphin Tour.

When we left the dock, there were seagulls swarming our boat.  We soon found out why...they wanted food!  And apparently their favorite food is Cheetos..

Alicia feeding the seagulls Cheetos

A little while later, we arrived at Shell Island.  This dock is on the narrowest part of the island and leads to a beautiful beach on the other side.

We found out on the boat ride over that Luke Bryan actually filmed one of his upcoming music videos here!  That was an interesting fact to learn :-)

The water at the island was more calm than it was near our resort, and it didn't have any seaweed in it.  I wish we could have stayed there longer, but we only got about an hour to enjoy the beautiful beach before we had to be back at the boat.  So we packed our stuff back up and walked back across the island...

And then we were off!  It was time to go searching for wild dolphins, and we found quite a few :-)

We capped off our last day in Florida with supper at Pineapple Willy's.  We snapped this selfie while waiting for our table, watching the sun set over the beach.

The awesome food and this view of the sunset from our table were the perfect way to end our last night of vacation :-)