Keys

In January we also went camping down in the Keys.  We took a glass-bottom boat tour - also on my bucket list (and probably slightly over-rated, luckily we had a Groupon for it).

 

But then you realize that you're glad you got a good deal and didn't spend a ton of money on it because your kids end up leaning over the rails that over look the glass bottom like this:

Or like this....

Or end up like this... 

Yeah, all that lapping water seemed to get to them before we ever even got out to the reef.  Glad we paid money and it was such an educational experience for them. :)

But it was still fun when people were awake.

How about these houses that you can just see all the way through to the Atlantic ocean?

Or this little gem seriously situated out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

I could totally live there. 

Here was the view from our campsite at Bahia Honda, somewhere down in the middle of the Florida Keys. 

And we survived!  I was nervous because this was our first camping trip with all of the kids.  We're not brave enough to camp with a baby. But it worked out well. And everyone slept... well, except me, of course.

The Keys are so unique that it's just so narrow down there - and especially the way our Key jutted out in the ocean. Ryan pointed out, there aren't many places you can watch the sun both rise and set from the same place.  

We went with our friends the Finlinsons and some of their friends - I realized I hardly have any pictures of them, but they're the silhouettes on the left.  :)

The old railroad (?) bridge.  Looks like it's ready for a scene out of a movie.

Attempting to feed the giant tarpon that jump out of the water to get the fish.  As you can see Cash was about to succeed at getting nipped by a giant bird through the fence instead.

Eating at this picturesque little restaurant with friends....

Wow, that looks like a really low ratio of adults to kids at that table.  :)

Good times.  Living it up while the winter lasts.

Check marks on the bucket list

Since we stayed here over the holidays I was determined that I get some of my bucket list items checked off (bucket list being currently in urgent mode seeing as we've hardly done anything in our 4 1/2 years here and we only have 6 months to go).  The second driving factor is that I forget that in a few months I will be cursing the weather and the hot mess I call hair and not want to leave the house to do anything but get in the pool that only requires about 10 steps of effort out my back door.

So over New Year's we met up with some friends (I should call them Our Friends - as in like basically one of the few and far between that actually do anything with us!  So sad they moved).  We did the west side of Florida.  Oh my.  Why didn't I go there before?  Except that then I would want to spend all my money on beach houses going there again and again, and we may have never had our Disney adventures. We went to Naples, Ft. Myers Beach, Sannibel Island, Lovers Key and Marco Island.  BEAUTIFUL sugar-sand beaches, great shelling, and beautiful (almost cool!) weather.  Totally changed my mind about Florida.  I loved it over there. They had the BEST beach houses right on the ocean front.  Sadly, as a last minute idea they were all booked for our trip.  If I was staying here longer I would definitely go oceanfront and splurge on a big ol' beach house with a fire pit overlooking the gulf coast sunsets...

 

Check out this awesome sandcastle!  (Not our doing).  And all the detail!  So cool.

Snowman, Florida style.

Oh look!  There were Other Friends. 

Front row seats for the sunset.  Every night we were there people literally clapped when the sun finally went down.  It cracked us up every time.  Way to go, sun.  Nice show.  Good job on another hard day's work.

Hurray for the New Year!!

It turned out very fitting that we literally watched the sun set on 2012.

And I love the self-taken picture of the dirty, chubby baby feet.

  

    

It was really the most perfect trip we've been on.  We realized that camping with 4 kids = lots of work.  Disneyworld with 4 kids = lots of work.  Beach with 4 kids = actually a relaxing vacation.  We've never been beachy people.  Ryan and I would take the streets of Italy or New York over the Bahamas any day. But now I can see why people are.