Today was fun. I woke up right after the sunrise on the lounge chair out on the balcony. My back was stiff and sore. Amy and I had been out there talking for forever the night before, and I just stayed out there. Besides the fact that Chris, Elijah, and Owen were all asleep in my bed and there was no room for me, I was just really into laying there on the balcony watching the stars and waves and listening to them crash on the beach. It’s hypnotic.
So, I drug myself to the bed when Owen woke up some time early this morning, and then got up for good around eight. We lounged around for an hour or two, eating breakfast burritos, listening to music, and posting pictures for you guys. Then, we all got into our swimsuits, gathered up a bajillion shovels, pails, floats, swim rings, towels, and other beach paraphernalia, packed up some stuff for lunch, gathered our five small children, and hit the road. We went to this really awesome state park. I regret to tell you all that I didn’t take a lot of pictures of this place, but it was because we were too busy actually doing things. This place was shielded from the big waves by a rock jetty, and it was really shallow with just enough small waves to make in interesting. There was plenty of wet sand for playing in, and dry sand up on the beach to stick your umbrella in. We played and played. The kids all had a blast. We built a really awesome sand castle. Amy and I and all of the kids contributed to our sandy work of art, and we were quite proud of the end result. Chris, Velvet, and I went snorkeling, which was cool. Chris really, really enjoyed that. I had more of a hard time, due to my sinus infection (which is much better than when I came, in case you are wondering). I kept coughing into my snorkel. It was fun while I did it, though. There were fish swimming around all over the place.
After we finally drug ourselves out of the water and across the beach with our five little children, our bajillion shovels, pails, floats, swim rings, towels, and other beach paraphernalia, we made some sandwiches and had a picnic. We were starved after being in the water and playing in the sand for several hours. We played around for a while, and then went to Alligator Lake, where we actually got to see some alligators.
Once we got back to the condo, we went down to the swimming pool and the hot tub. It was fun, but we were exhausted by the time we made it back to our room. We had a late dinner, and all of the kids were soon asleep. They all played hard today, and were so exhausted.
Right now, I’m the only one up, waiting on a load of laundry to finish, so we can have clean swimsuits and towels for tomorrow. It’s so cool to have such a fun day and know that you’re just going to get up and do it all again tomorrow.

Click here to see pictures from Monday.