Anna Maria Island, Florida

So we did the long trek to Florida, and we are pleased to say we drove straight through, all 21 hours of it. There is just a little bit of pleasure to know we accomplished that challenge and survived and didn't have to plunk down more cash for a hotel each way. Would definitely do it that way again. Unbelievably, on the way home, all the kids went to sleep around 11:30pm, and WE HAD TO WAKE THEM UP 10 HOURS LATER, at 9:30am for breakfast. Lucky kids!!! What adult can sleep like that?




This is how many shells Kume could get in about 5 minutes. Yeah, we have a huge bucket of them at home now. Any suggestions on what to do with them???




So, CJ contemplated getting a tan, you know, trying to be all teenager-ish. He lost interest in about 10 minutes, and acted like the boy we know.



Day 1 -- Casperson Beach, near Venice Beach. A fanastic place to body surf, and the best place around to search for shark teeth. It was really wavy this particular day, and we all got thrown around quite a bit, with scratches and blood all over our still-white legs.



Kume scanning the sand for shark teeth. We collected about 50 of the little buggers.


This was the view from our deck. We were sooooo spoiled. I think we set the bar too high, no one will ever want to go to a place not directly on the gulf like this. It was great for all of us, the kids could go back and forth from condo to the beach or pool, and we didn't have to lug anything down to the beach except our iced tea and magazines. Rough life!



First Easter ever for the twins, so we had to decorate eggs.



We had one rather cold day, so we hunted around for a decent nature hike. On our hike, Action found this sea-life "thing" that squirted out ink when he touched it (don't worry --- with his shoe). We explored and ran into some other interesting wild life, and then watched some dolfins put on a show for us in the bay, so this colder weather day was still spectacular.



Okay, so we didn't bring toys for the older boys, as they are more into sports equipment than anything else. Surprisingly, they built stuff with these blocks almost as much as Jambo did.


This was the most "work" that Farmboy had to do this week. Oh, I guess he did wipe down the counter about 942 times.

Anna Maria Island is fantastic. Would love to venture there again.



But, hey, I am heading to Texas next week for hopefully more warm weather. There is an orphan/adoption summit there April 29-May 1. Anyone else gonna be there? Natalie from Gladney is going. Think I can corner her into giving me my court date?