Growing older

We had professional family portraits done yesterday - on Siesta Key beach..one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Fine, soft white sand - almost like walking through tons of baby powder!

The pictures turned out so so so well. It is amazing how well...almost all were perfect! Of course there were the few "stray" shots with someone's eyes closed or a funny look, but not nearly as many as in past sessions. It's probably been at least 3 years since we had the last round of pictures. On this scale anyway... and actually probably longer than that at these prices - like our wedding! But they are so worth it. As Gary said "these are memories that will be with us always, and you can't grab again."

One of the shots that I thought was so fun was of all three kids jumping up in the air - the photographer has a much faster lens than I do and he was able to capture them way up there - it looks like they are so high in the air!

One of the funniest shots was all 5 of us piled on each other...starting with Darren at the bottom, then me, Josh, Rylie and Ellie (lucky dog) on top of us all. Top that with a gorgeous sunset behind us to the right... and it's definitely a "keeper."

This has been a great vacation... of course the kids have had their "moment's" of getting on each other's nerves...but for the most part they have been great. Flying kites on the beach, building sand castles, running from manic squirrels at the Jungle Garden (I've never been so afraid of a squirrel - this one looked at me like he was going to jump right on the table and make off with my sandwich!), finding shells and just having fun together! What more can I ask for?

Much needed sunshine

We made it to Florida in one piece! I hate flying, but everyone else enjoyed the flight. We went to the drum circle Sat night and heard some great music and enjoyed the sunset over the ocean. Even though the 'natives' thought it was cool (it was in the upper 60's) we thought it was wonderful and went barefoot in the sand!

Today we hit the beach and the girls played in the waves, Ellie built a sandcastle all by herself (no help from anyone this year!), they found shells and went for long walks on the beach. Me? I finished my book (Plum Spooky) and got sunburned! How is it I can get 4 other people slathered in sunscreen to the point where no one else is red, but I forget to put it on an entire leg of myself? It's burnt enough that I'm skipping the hot tub tonight...bummer! I love the hot tub almost as much as the beach!

We stopped at "Splash" (a beachwear store) and got flip flops for Rylie, beach shoes for Darren and everyone else managed to hang onto their $$. Saw lots of things they liked, but everyone decided to wait til we hit downtown Venice to spend anything. Amazing!

Looking forward to many more days of fun and sun. I'll post pics when we get home.