Growing up…our family never really traveled. I mean we didn’t even get a vehicle until I was about 15 years old. The most we did was travel to church and back home. As a matter of fact for most of my life we traveled by foot to the places we needed to go to. My father would take one of us to walk with him to the grocery store if we needed groceries. (We had an amazing childhood and our home was filled with laughter and love) We learned to “make due”, with whatever we had.

I was not introduced to travel until a family friend offered my parents the opportunity for me to take a summer babysitting job in New Iberia, Louisiana. I was so naive that I thought I was traveling overseas to Liberia! Lol I’d never traveled ANYWHERE!

My first trip out of Louisiana was to Jacksonville, Fl! I was in a singing group and our lead singer and organizer had a few gigs there so we got to travel there for the weekend…can you imagine being 19 or so and finally seeing some place other than your hometown or surrounding cities?? I was like “OH WOW, the ocean”!!! I was soooo excited to simply place my foot in the Atlantic Ocean!

Well, fast forward to now…after experiencing the sudden passing of my dear mother, our family has realized how important it is to create memories with one another via travel! We take nothing for granted. When my mom died, we had to reflect on why we never traveled. We talked about how we wanted to give our children memories for s lifetime and my father desired to travel!
These past few years we have been able to travel out of the country as a family, and to several places here in the states! I’m so grateful to be able to enjoy my family and for all of these lasting memories created amongst us.

We recently took a trip to Orange Beach Alabama! This place is beyond BEAUTIFUL!!! It looked like something in the Caribbean! The sand is WHITE!!! The water is beautiful! The sand is soft like silk! I couldn’t believe it was only about 5 1/2 hours from Lake Charles, LA!

I’m so excited to share some images from our family mini vacay! If you are looking for a place that is reasonable and will give you an experience like you have gone on a luxury vacation in another country….this is the place! We rented a condo right on the beach with amazing amenities! It was 12 of us and we had a 3 bedroom with 2 bathrooms and an extra pull out couch for more sleep accommodations. I was impressed with how nice everything was when we got there. I didn’t expect the beach to be a beautiful as it was, considering it was in Alabama. I was speechless when I laid eyes on the beach!

We were able to get awesome family portraits, and great snapshots of our family interaction and vacay shenanigans!!! I wanted to share some of our spontaneous Labor Day weekend trip with you! Hope you enjoy!