Our Vacation

We have been lucky enough to "borrow" Aunt Jacques's pink house for a family vacation once a year for the past couple of years. It could be one of my favorite places ever! A couple weeks ago, we made our annual pilgrimage down there (although it wasn't quite as big of a pilgrimage for us this year!) with the whole fam - minus Dad and Sean who had to stay in Sebring to work =(. We all had a great time, plenty of sand, sun, sea and family time... Lots of golf cart rides for Mom and the kids early in the morning... There was lots of fishing going on too (but not so much to show for it)... A beautiful sunset every night... And lots of sleeping (for me anyways!). Here are some pics from our vacation! And just to warn you, when we got down there I realized I only had room for 300 pictures on my camera and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to take all the pictures I wanted! I mean I can take 300 pictures in a good day at the beach. So when I say here are "some" pictures from our week, there's gonna be a lot of them. Just so you know though, there's a lot I'm not showing you! Enjoy!

The kiddos watching TV - Blayne has his "special" glasses on. =)

Gramma having fun with her grandkids! I don't know what this stuff was - some sort of stringy white seaweed. There were a number of theories as to it's origin (I think mine was the best!) but it was compared to spaghetti, parmesean cheese, whale snot and various other things. The crazy thing was that no one had ever seen it before! Not any of us, not Dad (who's been to the beach a million times) and not anyone else that we met down there. So it's still a mystery. But it was the cause of this next picture...Ely crying because he's "stuck" behind a wall of the stuff and didn't want to touch it or get anywhere near it. He got over it but for the first couple of days, someone had to pick him up and move him back and forth from our chairs to the ocean.
Natalie looking adorable
All of our shoes... on the beach... at sunset... Pretty cool, huh??
Mom and Dad
Hannah Rose!
Me and my mens
Blayne and Ethan on the golf cart
Gramma and her boys
I don't know why, cause he's not smiling or anything, but I love this picture of Blayne! He just looks so grown up but so young and adorable all at the same time... =)
Awww, me and my little man (who is getting far too big for my taste!)
Seashells!!
That is Ely and me and that dark shape behind us is a MANATEE!! Michael and the kids were out in the water when the manatee just swam up to them! So I made a mad dash out there, grabbing Ely on the way, so we could see it. It was awesome! She (I don't know why we called it a she but we just did) hung out for like 10-15 min, just swimming around, letting us pet her, coming to the surface and snorting all over the place, hitting people with her tail and just generally being cool. It was, by far, one of my favorite memories of the beach.
Ely and Blayne chilling in the hammock
Sisters
One (of many) sunset pictures that I took
Blayne and Ely playing
I just couldn't get enough of these, they were so cute!
Michael and Amy
Grandma and all her grandkids
One last sunset...

Beach Pics!

So I totally crashed Erica's par-tay at the Island last week. To be clear, she did invite me for a three day, two night stay. But then I just couldn't leave and ended up staying the whole week. Blayne and I had a blast though - I just love that place!! We played on the beach (Blayne got in the water but I stayed far away - it was COLD!), took naps on the beach, went for walks, watched the sunset, went for golf cart rides... it was a great week! A vacation when I wasn't expecting it. So thank you Erica for letting me stay. And thanks Aunt Jacque for having such an awesome beach house and sharing it with me and Blayne!! Although I should probably tell you that according to Blayne, it's "Carrie's House." We went to visit her there a month or so ago, just for the day but I guess it stuck in his head that it's her house. So every time we left, he would say, "Bye Carrie's house! See you later!" And then when he'd had enough of the beach he would tell me he wanted to go back to Carrie's house. =) Anyhoo, here are some pics of our week.. the first couple of days Kerri and her kiddos and Gail and her kiddos were there too. The boys had a blast playing together! And us girls had a pretty good time too... Erica makes a mean margarita!! Then after they left, Caitlin and Jen came down and spent a couple of days. All in all, I had the best week - I got to know Erica better, got to spend some time with new friends, saw my awesome cuz Caitlin, drank margaritas, sat on the beach... But mostly I just chilled with my boy and enjoyed every second.


He totally fell asleep on me!! How cute is that?!?!?
Leaving the island... =(Although Blayne wasn't too sad because Emmett let him drive the boat!!