Beach Time

 

We spent three days in Ft. Myers Florida visiting Matt's brother - the girl's Uncle Ryan.

He's a pretty cool Uncle, and the girls adore him.  They think he's their human jungle gym.

 

 

Ft. Myer's beach.  Ryan's company owns several resorts, and he got us an amazing deal in a 3 bedroom condo right on the beach.  It was beautiful!  I LOVED our time on the beach.  I have loved beaches since I experienced my first beach in Cinque Terre, Italy.  (Doesn't everyone experience their first beach vacation in Italy followed closely by Nice, France?)

Just looking at these pictures makes me crave the beach.  I don't crave Disney World, but I crave the beach!  It's somewhat surprising since I'm not made for the beach with my extremely fair and quick-to-burn skin.  I have a natural inability to tan, I detest sand in my everyday life, and I have lived my whole life in land-locked Kansas.  But there is something amazing about standing in front of an endless body of water.  I love how small it makes me feel.  One of my favorite things in life is to lay on the beach, under an umbrella, with a book.  I love, love, love the beach.  And it turns out so do my children!  They were so entertained for hours and cried when the rain moved in both afternoons and forced us back inside.  I think we can easily do a week-long beach vacation in the future.  Sand, water, and sea life...what more can you ask for?

 

My fair-skinned babies playing in the shade.

Our sand mermaid.

 

 

 

Matt & the girls built a lake and then made a river to the ocean. 

It was pretty cool - great entertainment!

Brothers

 

 

September is their rainy season in Florida, and we got rained on each day.  Our first afternoon on the beach, we stayed until literrally the last second.  We watched everyone on the beach leave, and at one point, the only other family other than us came over to me to make sure we saw the storm clouds behind us (I was sitting with my back to the storm).  I told her we did - Matt was still in denial that the storm was headed our way.  After that family left, a worker hurried over to us and told us to get off the beach immediately because this was a very dangerous storm.  We grabbed the girls and started running as the rain started coming down.  We found our later that evening that a few people have been killed from lightening strikes on beaches recently.  Whoops!  Crazy Kansans!