2015 Vacation: Breakfast at the Beach

This year we decided to take a little tour of some of the top breakfast joints in the area close to our condo in Laguna Beach. I love a good breakfast – especially at a local dive – so we hit up the best places we could find as listed by Trip Adviser and Zomato (formally UrbanSpoon).

DONUT HOLE

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First up was Donut Hole in Rosemary Beach. We loved Donut Hole in Destin, but I think we liked this new Donut Hole better. Probably because it was a much bigger restaurant and we had absolutely zero wait.

We actually almost didn't find the restaurant as it is so new that our GPS could not find it. It's not the same diner atmosphere as the Destin location, but it was still delicious food. Outside the restaurant were game areas including ping pong and a Donut Hole game (basically Corn Hole) so that you would have something to do if there was a wait.

I had a Seafood Omelet (which was fantastic), while Jack discovered the little jelly packets on the table and insisted on toast and pancakes at every breakfast place, and Daniel had a healthy Grilled Chicken Salad (it was noon after all). 

When we paid our bill we all chose donuts from the donut case. They were excellent. We are definitely fans of Donut Hole (#4 breakfast place in Panama City Beach on Trip Advisor).

FATTY PATTY'S

On Day Two of our trip, we went to Fatty Patty's for breakfast. The slogan for the restaurant is "For the little fatty patty in all of us." I thought the slogan was hilarious. 

Great coffee and excellent breakfast. I had the Cinnamon Roll Pancakes with Eggs and Bacon, Daniel had a Chocolate Chip Waffle and Jack stuck with his pancakes and toast. 

Our waitress told us to be sure to grab donuts at Thomas Donut & Snack Shop in Laguna Beach.

We all loved Fatty Patty's and would plan on going back if we were in the area (#3 breakfast place in Panama City Beach on Trip Advisor).

JESSE'S PLACE

On Day Three we tried Jesse's Place. It is a family-owned diner in Panama City Beach.  They serve breakfast and are also a meat-and-three, serving food until 2pm.

Our waiter was the son of the owners and he was great. We had wonderful service, the food was good and he kept gushing over our two boys. It's not often you have a young man gush over kiddos. 

Daniel had the Papa's Breakfast, I tried The Classic and we stuck with getting Jack toast. All of which was delicious. We were the last to leave the diner and they never hurried us. 

We are big fans of Jesse's Place and glad we made the stop there (#1 breakfast place in Panama City Beach on Trip Advisor).

THOMAS DONUT & SNACK SHOP

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Finally, on our last morning we grabbed a donut from Thomas Donut & Snack Shop as advised by our waitress at Fatty's Pattys. She suggested that we arrive early to get a good donut before they ran out.

Daniel took Jack and they got a donut with sprinkles for Jack (of course), a chocolate glazed one for Daniel and I had a Key-Lime Custard Filled donut. They weren't super fresh, but they were all delicious (#2 breakfast place in Panama City Beach on Trip Advisor).



We ended up trying the top 4 bakeries/breakast eateries in the Panama City Beach area and really liked all of them.

2015 Vacation: Laguna Beach

We recently returned from a short, but much needed family vacation. Vacations never seem to be long enough, do they?

In true Moore fashion, we waited until the last minute to book our vacation rental (more on that in a future post). You know you need a vacation when you book (the night before your trip) for the WRONG WEEK. 

Thankfully the rental people were accommodating and refunded us all of our money AND we found a new rental location in Laguna Beach outside of Panama City Beach.

Anyways, we started our trip off on the wrong foot. Besides the mishap with booking the wrong dates, we were all tired, I had a migraine and Jack was exhibiting some threenager tendencies. 

To top it off, what should normally be a six-hour drive took us TEN hours. To be fair we did make a quick stop at IKEA in Atlanta, but the extra hours in the car took their toll on all of us.

Upon arriving at our rental we unloaded our stuff and went straight to bed. 

The next morning Jack was up early so Daniel took him on a quick grocery run so that we could have breakfast at our condo.

Our days were filled with lots of digging on our stretch of beach, swimming in the Gulf, and a mid-day break each day to tour the breakfast places in the area (more on that in a future post).

This is probably the most low-key vacation we have ever taken. We are the people that like to do things on vacation (ok, maybe that is more me than Daniel), but this trip was all about doing nothing but going to the beach. And it was good.

It was more than good, it was needed.

We had three entire days on the beach and we soaked up the time of basically doing nothing. 

In the past our typical vacations have been filled with hiking, biking, and paddling, and we end up feeling like we need a vacation from our vacation. 

With kids, that just isn't possible. By the end of our trip everyone was more relaxed, less on edge, and functioning like a team again. 

We could have easily stayed an entire week but are so grateful for the time that we were able to sneak away. 

We didn't bike, hike, or take a tour to see dolphins. But we did rest, relax, take night walks on the beach and enjoy good food (that I didn't have to cook).

I have a feeling we will return to the busy, action-filled vacations in the coming years, but for now, it was nice to just rest and spend time with our boys.