New Year's Trip 2015

Jaime and I went on our second (annual? Why not?!) trip over New Year's. We chose Florida this year, since it's fairly close to Indiana and it's fairly warm in the winter. Jaime had never been, so we crossed another state off her list. We ended up in Panama City Beach, and we really loved it.

Jaime was supposed to fly into Indianapolis late on the 30th and then we were going to drive down the next day in order to make it in time for the New Year's Eve celebration down there. Her flight was cancelled last minute, though, so she ended up flying into Nashville the next day and I picked her up on the way down. It set us back a bit, but we made it to Panama City at about 11 PM, just in time for the party!

Panama City Beach had a Beach Ball Drop, with a giant lighted beach ball dropping and a fireworks display at midnight. They had some live performers and tons of people. We were only there about 45 minutes, but it was really fun!

 Ball dropping and fireworks exploding!

I booked our hotel on Hotwire - only 40 bucks a night! I called a couple weeks ahead of time to check on the type of room we'd get and after a very confusing conversation with the lady on the phone, I got us switched into this gorgeous oceanview room. Million dollar view for forty bucks!

Breakfast on the balcony

Our first day was spent entirely on the beach. We walked for a while, watched the birds, played in the sand, then watched the sunset. It was nice weather and perfectly relaxing.

I carved my name in the sand and then Jaime just stepped right on it. So rude. :)

The ocean is amazing to me. There are so many things to look at and watch, one of which is the beautiful smooth sand each wave leaves. The waves are ever changing yet so constant. Loved it.

The birds are also super entertaining. It was fun to see all the different tracks in the sand and watch the birds run away from the waves.

We took a short break from the beach to run to Wal-Mart to get a kite and some beach chairs. The Wal-Mart in Panama City had an entire Airbrush section. Listen, when you're in Florida you gotta get some airbrush, right?

On our way back to our hotel, we picked up some food. We took it out to the beach to eat while we watched the sunset...and we found some seagull friends. They were surrounding us immediately. I won't lie when I say that I was a little nervous they were going to attack us. Once we finished the food, though, they left us to enjoy the sunset in peace.

Once the sun went down, we headed to watch some HGTV and order pizza. We so rarely have vacations like this - where we don't have tons to see and do - so it was really nice to just chill. Maybe I'll win the 2015 HGTV Dream Home.

The next morning, we busted out our new kite. Fortunately, we had perfect weather for it. I'd never flown a kite before (that I remember), so Jaime was insistent that I try it. I have to say, I was a natural.

 We then took a walk down the beach with our kite, just as if it were a dog, except in the air.

That afternoon we headed into town to walk along the pier. We saw lots of fishermen. Two of them caught something while we were there - an Alabama "Prison Fish" and a stingray.

The guy who caught the sting ray didn't want to pick it up for fear of being stung, so he pushed it back out over the edge to release it back into the wild.

We went to see "Into the Woods" at the movie theater then walked around the outdoor mall they have there and took another walk down the pier.

There we were, out in the middle of the water.

 And then, of course, we had sushi. And it was delightful.

On our last day, we walked out on the beach one more time. It was rainy and windy, so the sea was tumultuous. I wouldn't have wanted to be out there on the water that day!

We drove back to Nashville that day and had to drive through a pretty hefty thunderstorm. It was a stressful few hours, but we made it. Check out that waterfall at the gas station.

We finally made it to Nashville and walked into this beauty of a room. Keepin' it classy in Music City, am I right?

It seriously was a nice place, though, and we enjoyed a great night there before driving back to Indy the next day. We went to church in Nashville and happened upon the Spanish branch, which was fun. Then we drove to Columbus to have dinner with my parents then on to Indy that night. Yesterday we ran some errands and had lunch and dinner (sushi again!) before Jaime had to leave early this morning. It was a great week!