sand, shells, palm trees, & sun......

I was having trouble uploading to my blog on Monday...so the first part of our trip is on Facebook. We spent our first 3 nights with my aunt & uncle in Arcadia. If you can even count Thursday night...since we arrived just minutes before midnight. But we all crawled into bed and slept until a ripe hour of 7 a.m. Why can't you have a switch installed into your kids that you can switch them over to "vacation mode"? After 3 fun days with them we headed over to Sarasota.

There we stayed with Donovan's first cousin Andy & his wife Danielle.

So fun to be with them. So fun that the kids had 2 boys their same age to play with. The boys picked up where they left off with their relationship from one year ago ~ and got along so well. Danielle and Andy are pictured in the dictionary under "perfect host & hostess" & it was very relaxing to be with them. Love them so much!

Just a glimpse of supper time.

And this sweet lady to the left~ couldn't stand that I was in town & she hadn't seen me yet...so she came over for a little squeeze. Love you too Jessica!



Monday was our first official day at the beach. Each year this process gets easier and easier. We left behind strollers, swim diapers, and bottles this year. It was very cool to let the kids play & to burn off some energy. They relate pretty well with each other with the exception of the occasional fighting over who gets to use the shovel.

These 2 could cheese it up all day I think. :)

On Tuesday....we checked into a condo that we had rented. So yep, that's right we moved 3 times while here in the sunny state. Sound fun? Well, lets just say it was an adventure.

The condo wasn't available until Tuesday so rather than waste part of our spring break....we decided that staying with some family until it was ready was our best solution. It was like Christmas to walk into such a beautiful, well furnished condo. Suzy kept walking around saying, "OH MY WORD!!" over and over. She was just as thrilled as we were.

Here is the lanai overlooking the pool and ocean. Ahhhhh...love the screens that give us a great sound and smell of the ocean.

Kitchen and living room area.

Funny how the girls were so giddy about unpacking into their drawers! It was great...I didn't think Suzy could really do this on her own, but she followed big sisters lead and organized her belongings by shorts, panties, shirts, etc....and put them into separate drawers.

My life is changing every day as these little ones grow up!

Evenings we having been exploring different restaurants, with the help of Jessica (our personal restaurant connoisseur.) Which is a huge vacation for me not to prepare meals every evening.
Here we are in the above picture with most of the sand cleaned up out of our 3000 parts and starvin' hungry.

Love love love the views, smells, and sounds of this place.

Tuesday night we headed over to St. Armands Circle for some Italian deliciousness. We ate at Venezia. And it was the best oven baked pizza I've ever had hands down. Well except for when we were at Uncle Spot and Aunt Dot's a couple of weeks ago. Love the atmosphere, loved the food. I did not love the wait...with 4 crazy, hungry kids...but all good, pure, and scrumptious pizza comes to those who wait. So we played silly games on paper, took pictures, and talked about the patience virtue until the pizza arrived.

Wednesday morning was our "what are we crazy??" day. We got up at 5:45 a.m. to hunt sea shells over at Lido beach. I was excited the night before, had a "we are insane" moment when the alarm went off....and then as I woke up...."glad we are doing this" brief second. We had been wanting to do this with our kids in past years, but with their ages not wanting to wake sleeping babies. So this year was ideal~since we were at the beach within walking distance.

Nope we didn't build it...but we enjoyed it.

Now~things that make you go Hmmmm??? What to do with some of these "treasures" that will fill the entire trunk of our van if we take them all home.

Someone went waist deep in the water that morning & found a sand dollar. Because we found out from others that morning you had to go out into the water to find the treasured dollar. I will not even pretend I have that much drive to achieve that kind of find.

Washing the treasures....and in essence keeping this guy busy for a good hour.

The next day was a pool day. Loving the pool. However a tad bit harder to keep track of 4....1 that can not swim, 1 that thinks he knows how to swim, 1 that tries dangerous tricks and makes me frantic, and 1 that is safe, tried and true when it comes to swimming.

And last night another delicious treat in downtown Sarasota.....Two Senorita's. Authentic Mexican, amazing atmosphere, cool decor, and awesome food~ Thanks Jessica for the heads up.

So much fun walking around the downtown area and taking in the sights. Seeing amazing other places we would love to eat at (if we could eat out every day for the next 30 days) Cool sports cars & Harley motorcycles the boys loved pointing out. And us?...just loving this time we have together. Treasuring every moment.

Quote of the day:

Jack: "Mom, we should adopt a little kid. Like a boy, like Mussie." (a little boy in our small group."