All good things must come to an end

That meant saying goodbye to cousins,

my adorable niece

parents and siblings

We had a great time in Florida

and so many things are changing for my extended family...

moving, heading to medical residency, having babies

Hope for a reunion sometime soon!

Sad to be missing 2 of my siblings...

Goodbye to bitty Belle

The saddest goodbye of all...the "twins" had to once again be separated!

Catch me at the beach

As our collective families were sitting on the beach all week long

we realized what a great week we enjoyed

relaxed, gorgeous weather

kids loving to be with each other

Hope it can happen again, sometime soon!

Forget Snowmen, I'll take sandmen any day!

Is that a Gator???

During our week in Naples we took one day away from the beach and drove south

About 1 hour south our giant crew boarded an airboat

I felt like no trip to southern FL is complete without an airboat tour

It was a chilly overcast morning,

not the best time to view gators but we did see a lot of birds and a little glimpse of a gator

Little did we know later in the day how many gators we would get to see

Lovely ladies hanging out on the boardwalk

This little guy is a rental from a local gator farm

Don't totally agree with him being in a cage all day long with not much to do besides being held by guests but my girls totally loved holding him

At one point they were scratching the top of his head and he would point his snout up into the air loving every minute!

Mounted behind the kids is the largest alligator ever caught in Florida

Glad we didn't run into any that large on this trip

Mangrove forests

Stay close little one!

Merry Christmas

Trying to catch up and get this lovely FL trip done!

Christmas Eve morning was spent at a nearby church

It was wonderful getting to start out the Christmas crazy focusing

on the true reason for the season

The family headed to the beach for Christmas day

It was awesome, super awesome

Sitting in the sun, playing at the beach and kiddos jumping in the waves

Ying and Yang besties go this for Christmas from Nana

Just a hanging out with cousins

Winter, the Dolphin

After tossing off the Mickey ears and making our way south 

for our second week of adventure we stopped at 

Clearwater Aquarium which was kindof sortof on the way to our beach house

My kids all love the movie Dolphin Tale

and were really excited to see Winter the dolphin

My favorite appearance was Rufus the pelican

 

Any playing peekaboo with my little

There were a lot of things on display from the movie and it was cool to walk

around for about an hour

We even got to see Santa and one of his elves feeding the fish

This is not winter but another dolphin that was rescued