Panama City Beach- Day 5
Facing Your Fears
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
"At times I am afraid, I will put my trust in YOU"- Psalm 56:3
Morning
Due to the water being shut off in the condo at 10AM, we went to the beach very early in the morning to get back in time to shower and get out of the condo prior to the water being shut off. The beach was not near as calm on this morning as it was the previous morning but the kids still had a great time with their boogie boards and playing in the shallow waters and the sand bar.
What a gorgeous morning at Pinnacle Port!
Longer sleeves and t-shirts to help with our poor sunburnt kiddos!
Meanwhile, we are chilling under the umbrella in our beach chairs!
Enough beach... It is time for BASEBALL!
After we got back to the condo, showered and got ready for the day, we went straight to Thomas Donuts in Panama City Beach. TIP- Find Facebook groups for the destinations you are headed to. This helps with everything from hotels/ rentals to restaurants! I had read about this place on a Facebook group for PCB fans and tourist and let me go ahead and say that this place did not disappoint. It was easily the best donuts I have ever had. Their menu was extensive with both cake and yeast style donuts, flavored in countless options. Their prices were very reasonable, especially considering how large the donuts were. We all ordered 2 donuts and we got a few kolaches to share as well as iced coffees.
The breakfast menu at Thomas Donuts
A view of all of the tasty goodness Thomas had to offer!
They offered more than just breakfast donuts.
Crepes, ice cream and even sandwiches!
More of the Thomas Donuts seating! They had rocking chairs and lounge chairs and sun shades too!
Thomas Donuts Rankings
Luke- Cookies and Cream Donut & Reese's Donut-8
Natalie- Reese's Donut & Birthday (Cake) Donut- 9
Chris- Chocolate Long John & Blueberry (cake) Donut- 7
Kellie- White Cream & Birthday (cake) Donut- 9
Kolaches- 8
Iced Coffee- 9! WOW IT WAS GOOD!
(I seriously hate it when I find a GREAT coffee on vacation... Knowing I cannot have this every single day is so depressing)
Seriously the best donuts I have ever had!
My mouth is watering as I write this post! SO GOOD!
This was a HUGE hit with our family!
I have never seen the kids sprint so fast to the car to avoid this picture!
HAHA... Nope! Mama has to take the picture!
We all really enjoyed this breakfast and we were now headed to Panama City Beach Publix Sports Complex for our last game in Pool Play. The traffic was still minimal and we arrived at 10:45am for a 11:15AM arrival time. We all sprayed an ENORMOUS amount of sunscreen and then made the trek to the back fields for our game.
Afternoon
This game 4 was against the Navigators from the Tampa Bay area. They were another 10U AAA team and well polished. As 8 out of the 11 Marucci team members had already pitched at the start of this game, we were hopeful Luke would be able to pitch an inning in this game. Instead he was behind the plate almost the entire game catching for one of the other catchers on the team. Towards the end of the game he was working hard as our pitcher was feeling the pressure and heat and there were many wild pitches. Luke was still batting 10th and only got one at bat this game and got on base with a walk.
Marucci lost the game 13-0.
These mid-day games were SO HOT!
Playing 3rd base!
After the game, we drove around Panama City Beach area to find the #10 Beach Access sign for Luke's birthday (just 4 days away). TIP- This is a trend with visitors to PCB and even though it was "kinda" out of the way, I am so glad we did this! I really wish we would have found Natalie's 13 and my 40!
How can my BABY be turning 10 this weekend?
I love this boy SO MUCH!
Happy 10th Birthday LUKE!
After we found Luke's Birthday beach point, we then decided to try a "hole in the wall" seafood place for lunch. We were all hungry as we had not had anything since the 10AM breakfast at Thomas Donuts and it was already 3:30PM. We ate lunch at Barracuda Beach off of Thomas Rd in Panama City Beach. We were hopeful they would have mussels or boiled shrimp for Luke but we settled with a fried shrimp basket. TIP- This was truly a "hole-in-the-wall" but the food and service were good. The prices were not too bad, but our bill with tip was $125.
We tried the Grouper bites for an appetizer and they were GREAT!
Luke's Shrimp basket with sub mac& cheese instead of fries.
This is where he discovered that he LOVES shrimp... Just boiled or grilled shrimp!
Where does he get his "healthiness"? Not from me!
Natalie's Shrimp Scampi over pasta
The Fried Shrimp basket with mashed potatoes for Chris.
The Grouper Imperial with fresh grouper and creamy sauce!
Despite not knowing what to expect, we enjoyed this place and the service was phenomenal!
After lunch we meandered into a souvenir store called Jaws. This was a $9.99 or lower store and literally all of their stuff was less than $10. We all got a PCB shirt and the kids got more crocs and swim shirts. I wish more places had these types of stores.
Once again, I LOVE YOU FLORIDA!
We then went to the SkyWheel in Pier Park to use our "Free Attraction" that was given to us by Ripken. We all LOVE mini-golf so we used this freebie on this attraction. We showed the bracelet to the ticket counter expecting to get a free $15 mini golf but instead we got ALL 4 of us a free round. That was a surprise for sure. We played our round of mini-golf and this course had several "twist" holes that added weird and funky ways to play mini-golf. Chris won... of course! But we all had fun.
They LOVE playing mini-golf and not at all competitive!
Luke having to putt between his legs thanks to the "Twist" on hole 10!
Then Natalie asked to do the Rope Course at the SkyWheel and asked Luke to do it with her. He is not a huge risk taker and usually says no loud and clear. But this time he went back and fourth but as we approached the ticket counter to buy the tickets he said "Ok. I'll do it". So I showed them our bracelet again hoping to only have to pay for Natalie's Ropes Course but they gave us BOTH kids for free. So essentially we had been at the SkyWheel for 3 hours already and paid $0.
My heart was SO HAPPY! He is actually going to do this with Nattie!
Way to go Luke the Duke! I am so proud of you!
Natalie on the course!
I wish you could zoom in and see his face... He was so relieved to have made it across the rope!
Way to go #LuketheDuke!
Thank you Luke for doing this with Nattie.
I know it was not easy to face your fears but we are SO PROUD of you!
Evening
By then it was nearly 8PM and the sun had already gone down at the beach so we made our way back to Pinnacle Port to make dinner. We had to stop at Publix to get Luke's Birthday Cupcakes for his team. Unfortunately, they only made 1 dozen so we had to wait for the 2nd dozen to be made but we eventually made it back to eat our spaghetti in the condo. TIP- As I mentioned in a previous post, we decided to make 3 of our 7 dinners in the condo just to save money. If you are staying in an AirBNB that has these type of options, it is a GREAT way to save a little money!
Cooking in the condo at 8:30PM... This is new for us but it worked!
After dinner it was past 9pm so we quickly got changed and then went and spent some time at the pool. The same crazy kids were there running around like idiots but we did not let that spoil our fun and I kept my teacher voice off, surprisingly!
We called it a night after about an hour in the pool and went back to the HOT condo to go to bed. Once again, the condo AC was set on 72* and was reading 75*. We double checked that all the sliding doors were closed (in fact, we rarely opened them after the technician came) and they were all closed so we could not explain the warmth. Even at midnight, it was still 74* in the condo. This became a HUGE frustration for us.
We only spent a few hours at the beach this day but the rest was spent making memories in Panama City Beach and we are SO PROUD of Luke the Duke for facing his fears!
Up Next... Bracket Play for Marucci!
God is good... ALL THE TIME!
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