Florida 09

Just a few favorites from our trip to Florida. Wow, check out that alliteration. We spent a week at our old stomping ground, Ft. Myers Beach, "we" being my brother, sister and family, and us. We got into a good routine of going to the beach in the morning for a while, coming home for lunch and naps (for everyone!), swimming in the pool in the afternoon, then dinner and various other activities that included beach time again, ice cream, and dance parties. Mom, we missed you and John lots! I think this was the only picture I got of all of the kids together. And you can see it was quite successful. It's not easy getting 4 kids 4 and under to sit for a picture. Jackson and Deacon are in the middle, and Shepherd and Eva on the outsides.
Here's Deacon enjoying some time at the beach. He even took a little dip in the gulf. He didn't like it much.

Jackson's 3rd birthday was the 27th, so we had an early birthday party with my family while we were there. He was so embarrassed when everyone sang Happy Birthday to him. Quite cute. Here is Eva, Jackson, Nathan ( our friends the Loerop's came for the day to help celebrate), and Shep. Really, we just wanted an excuse to get more Publix cake. This was our THIRD cake and it was only Tuesday. If you've ever had Publix cake before, you get it.

On our morning trips to the beach we had to walk a little way to get there. And, of course, with 4 kids in tow, there is a a TON of stuff to bring. Thankfully, there was a cart that we could take which ended up also being transportation when littles would get tired. Quite a life-saver.

The kids really liked being in the water this year, so we would trek out to the sandbar to find sand dollars. Jackson loved making his fingers turn yellow from sand dollar "pee".

Don't worry Mom, I'll put more up soon!