Thursday, June 23, 2022

PCB... Where. To. Begin.- Day 5

 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! 

The line when we arrived at 10AM. (It moved VERY fast) 


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! 

Check out Luke's Game 4:

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. 

Barracuda Beach menu


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. 

Time for mini-golf!

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!

I was a little nervous that Luke was going to back out at the last minute but much to my surprise, he followed through and did the Ropes Course. In fact, the two of them stayed up on the course for over 2 hours. Natalie did EVERYTHING on the course and Luke did about 2/3 of it. I was so incredibly proud of Luke for facing his fears and doing this with his sister. She was so happy and even when they came down from the course, Luke said "Wow that was awesome. I want to do it again".
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! 

 Check out ALL of our LAND travels:










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Wednesday, June 22, 2022

PCB... Where. To. Begin- Day 4

Panama City Beach- Day 4 
Dolphins, Crabs and Stingrays Oh My! 
Tuesday, June 7, 2022 

A day that starts AND ends at the beach is a GOOD DAY! 

Morning
We were able to sleep in a bit and catch up on our sleep which was fabulous. We made some breakfast in the condo and then hit the beach before 8AM. The beach was not crowded at all at this time and we were able to sit in our chairs we rented from Burke's Beach Service. TIP- Be sure to rent your beach chairs ahead of time if possible. This company was sold out on Monday and I called and immediately booked 2 chairs and an umbrella for the remainder of the week for $142. The cost for a full week rental was $240. I know some VRBOs/ ABNB offer FREE beach service with their rentals but not all. 

This is absolute perfection! 


I could start the day right here EVERY DAY! 


This is my happy place for sure! 

While the kids were swimming and enjoying the insanely calm waters, we were able to spot a pair of dolphins very close to the shore. They kept jumping up and it was so cool. The kids were even closer than us as they were 20 feet into the water on a sand bar. We also saw several F35(?) flying above from a nearby Air Station in Pensacola, FL. 

We loved this morning at the beach! 


Look closely and you can see the pair of dolphins jumping out of the water! 

We stayed at the beach for a little over 2 hours and then hurried back to the condo to get ready for our Double Header day at the ballpark. We made some sandwiches to go and we were out the door by 11AM. The traffic to the PCB Publix Sports Complex was a bit heavier during the day and our commute was 28 minutes plus the 12 minute walk to our field! 


Morning picture on the balcony before baseball! 


We are ready for this DOUBLE HEADER! 

Afternoon
Once at the ballpark Luke made his way to the cages to warm up with his team and then went to Field 9 for our first game. While he was getting to the field, he was stung by a wasp just below his left eye. He was in a lot of pain but toughed it out as we have trained him that there is "no crying in baseball". We gave him some Aleve and Benadryl from our Team Nurse mom and he was ready to play.
WAY TO GO LUKE for being so TOUGH! We are so proud of you! 

Game 2 vs Gulf Coast Marlins (Gulfport, MS)- Luke the Duke 
During game 1 Luke sat out the first inning so he could catch the 2nd inning, which he did. He also was able to play 3rd base (his favorite position) in this game. He was moved up in the line up to bat 10th. He got on base 2 times with 2 walks and then a RBI single to tie the game. This was his biggest clutch hit of the tournament. Unfortunately Marucci was not able to walk away with a win but rather ended the game in a tie. 

Luke the Duke Game 2 Highlights

He was SO PROUD of this hit to TIE THE GAME! 


He LOVES playing 3rd base! 

Game 3 vs Fungeauxs (Covington, LA) - Luke the Duke 
During game 3 Luke shared his time between catching and 3rd base, including resting innings prior to catching. This Fungeauxs team was a well-developed 10UAAA team and their pitching was fast and precise; however, Luke did well against these pitchers and got a line drive single and a hard hit ground out. As the game progressed, we were hopeful Luke would be able to pitch but he remained at catcher since the 3rd inning so we knew this game/ day was not going to happen. Hopefully he will get to pitch at least an inning or two during the week long tournament. We paid a LOT of money to be here.
 Marucci came up short again and lost 6-4. 

Check out LUKE the Duke Game 3 highlights! 

Game 3 was hard fought but we came up short! 


One of the BEST pictures of the entire week! Safe by a MILE! 


Luke's best game behind the plate! Way to go Luke the Duke! 

It was insanely hot at these games and despite all of us drinking LOTS of water, we were all very dehydrated and weak. Especially Natalie who was suffering from a severe sunburn. Her and her friend, Kate, stayed under the main concession pavilion the entire time to avoid sun exposure but she was very weak and lightheaded. The walk back to our car felt much longer than the .52 miles it really was! It was SO HOT! 


We are so grateful for Kate and the Haberkamp Family! 


Big sister cheerleaders of Marucci! 
Natalie, Kate and Abby Claire! 


They survived the DOUBLE HEADER in the 100*+ heat index! 

Evening
By this time it was nearly 5PM as we made our way back to Sunnyside to our condo. We stopped at Publix to get more items for our Taco Tuesday night in the condo and order Luke's birthday cupcakes for Thursday. Once back at the condo we got changed and I made an easy taco night dinner. TIP- I was not really excited to cook while on vacation but this saved us a LOT of money. Prices for restaurants in PCB were $25-40 per PERSON. We decided to cook 3 of the 7 meals in our condo and this really did save us a lot of money. Luke was in an exceptionally good mood and that made for a very pleasant evening. 

After dinner we waited 30 minutes (wink, wink) and then went to the beach around 7PM, just in time for the sunset. The kids had a great time playing the sand and burying Luke plus the boys played football. The sunset was absolutely PERFECT and it was a GREAT evening!


Time to bury your brother! 


A view from our condo's beach! 


This is my happy place! 


Absolutely NO FILTER needed! 


God sure does paint a pretty picture! 


It had been a bumpy ride thus far but we LOVE PCB! 


My whole heart! 

The kids and I waded in the water near the shallow sandbars until the sun went down and then we made our way to the pool. Pinnacle Port was hosting a Family Movie Night with a HUGE projection screen at the pool area. This meant a LOT of kids, many of whom were loud, rude and unruly. I tried REALLY hard to ignore it all but eventually after some teenagers kept jumping over us to splash in the pool, my TEACHER VOICE came out and I was done! (On a side note... What has happened to parenting today? I mean it is almost like it doesn't even exist.) These kids were literally RUNNING or sprinting around the gigantic pool playing tag and kicking or tripping other kids and adults. Their parents... Who knows where they were or on their devices on a lounge chair. THIS is what is wrong with society today!!! Trust me... I see it in the classroom too. Each and every single day! C'mon parents... STEP UP! 


I really appreciated the effort put out by our Condo! 

After our annoying time at the pool we decided to change and then go "crabbing" at the beach. Once we got back to the condo the AC was set at 72* and it was 75* in the condo. I quickly let the property manager know who requested a technician come and take a look at the unit. 


I am SO TIRED OF THIS! This is miserable! 

We didn't know when the tech was going to come so we left to go crabbing. Luke had been looking forward to this for a while and we had hoped to be able to do this with teammates but since we were all staying at various locations and beaches it was hard to narrow down a time and place so we opted to try it out on our own first. This was so much fun! I mean a little terrifying at first but it was so much fun! Chris and Luke found countless small crabs and several LARGE crabs. Not to mention we were there when another lady found and caught a baby stingray! This was one of my favorite nights of the trip! TIP- Be sure to have a large net for crabbing and LOTS of lights! We had 1 light and then the lights from our phone but really wish we had an additional flashlight or two! 


We had no idea what was coming at this point! 


We were looking for "Mr. Crab". 


This was so much fun! 

Check out our crabbing adventure at Pinnacle Port! 
We had so much fun with this! 

Once we returned to our condo around 11PM, we learned that the technician had come and looked at the AC and said there was a sliding door that was left cracked open which what was causing the AC issues. This seemed a little odd to me since Chris is so anal about shutting the doors but mistakes were made. By the time we were getting into bed around midnight, the temperature on the AC was reading 73* so we were moving in the right direction. 


We saw this note in the elevator lobby! 
More issues at Pinnacle Port... Good Greif, we need to catch a break! 
I guess it will be early beach and early showers tomorrow morning! 

It was a long, hard and HOT day of baseball but ended with the gorgeous crystal clear waters of the Gulf! 

Up Next was Marucci's last game of Pool Play and another fun day in PCB! 

God is good... ALL THE TIME! 

 Check out ALL of our LAND travels:










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