Our Farmhouse Blessings

 Day Three

The children have all been playing so hard on this trip, all of them had slept in a bit.  It has given Darryl and I some lovely time together in the mornings.  Before it gets hot, we sit on the covered porch, fresh coffee in hand, discussing our dreams for the future.  

 This day, we decided after breakfast to take a break from the beach and head out to explore the local towns along the beach.

First, some paddy cake...

We were staying in a new area to us in the Florida Panhandle.
  It's comprised of many beaches, each with a unique flavor.  This area is relatively newly developed, but some towns looked as if they had been here for many years.

One such town is called Rosemary Beach.
  Just steps from the sand land you in a village that looks straight out of Europe.  

The village intertwines down brick roads that lead to beautiful European inspired cottages and buildings.  Gas lanterns, french apothecaries, coffee shops, etc. line the streets, while people walk around either dressed in designer fashions, shopping or walking to a restaurant or people in bathing suits holding boogie boards heading to the beach.
  It really is a very unique place!

It was quite hot and while some people were sitting outside sipping cappuccinos, we needed to escape into some air conditioning.

  A bookstore! 

 Be still my heart!

We settled in for a good while and read some good books.

See what I mean?  

You can see the beach from almost all of these buildings.

What's even more astounding?

This town wasn't even here until 1995!

It's all so new, yet looks so old!

 I can't believe he is almost as tall as me!

 

Later in the day, we drove into Alys Beach.  

This beach borders Rosemary Beach and is equally unique in it's style and architecture.

Beautiful palm trees line the streets of Bermuda style stucco homes.

The streets are lined with multi-million dollar homes all white with black accents. 

Again, living in Florida almost my entire life, I have never seen anything like these beach towns!

They were showing a movie in the square, but we were interested in the lighted splash fountain.

The kids all loved playing in this!

After all that fun, we headed back to the cottage for dinner.

I had prepared a chicken in the crockpot and we enjoyed it with some red potato salad and cut up cantelope.  

Again, we are all so tired and fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows.

 Cozy after a day of fun!