After driving away from Sanibel, we stopped at Gatorland before the airport.
I guess you can’t go to Florida without seeing the gators.
Or let birds eat off of your head!
Or hold a really huge snake!
(I love how Navy is at the head checking the snake out, while Scout is at the tail, trying to hold it far away. Dash is like a robot doing exactly waht he is supposed to do. And Pippi is a little freaked out, wondering what the heck is going on.)
The real highlight was this guy’s gator show.
So afterwards, when they announced that anyone could wrestle the gator, all of my kids volunteered. Well, I guess I volunteered the Pips.
Dash was a stud! He just went to town…grabbed the gator’s jaw, and smiled for the camera!
Haha!
Tricked you!
They put tape of the gator’s mouth — which bummed out all of my kids.
Except cool guy Scout who felt safer with the tape!
You have to love that Pippi is on a gator at 2!
Thanks Doey!
Navy’s animal wrangling juices were flowing — so she just started wrangling!
And we finished the day with a walk through the swampland of Florida.
The really hot, humid, and nothing-to-see swampland!
Did I mention how awesome Doey is?
And this big sister might get the award for easiest traveler — who helps mom the most. She was always running after Pippi, feeding her something, playing with her, buckling her up. She is about the best big sister Pippi could ask for!
—
Speaking of the Pips…
She had a wild streak today — but who wouldn’t when they are sitting on top of gators, holding huge snakes, and on day 8 of no naps?
-
-
-
-
We were off to the airport after this, and I have to say that there is no doubt in my mind that this vacation will go down in the record books as one of our family’s best!
Our second day on Sanibel, just might have been the best day?!?!
The die-hards got up for a sunrise shell hunt.
Clearly it was a success.
Then there was a few minutes to relax, before we headed over to the lighthouse to really score big!
This is called the “Sanibel Stoop” — where everyone is walking around while looking down.
You couldn’t go more than ten seconds without finding a shell. You just had to make sure it was empty before collecting it. And when anyone found a big, good, and empty shell….you would hear “BEAUTY” yelled from the finder.
There was sea life everywhere. In fact, they were fishing off of the pier, and caught a four-foot long fish while we were just yards away in the “stoop”.
This girl loved her ice cream shell.
We went to the dollar store and found these perfect baskets for shelling.
Here is one of our hauls.
After dumping them on a towel, Navy and Doey meticulously went through them to discard any imperfect shells.
And we ended up with a basket full of perfect “beauties”.
Who knew I would legitimately have hand injuries from collecting.
(It might have to do with my digging to find treasures buried from past hurricanes. Let me tell you — I probably pulled up 40 rad shells from underneath the sand.)
Sanibel….we love you!
WE ALL LOVE YOU!
—
Pippi…
Perfect and funny.
(Here she is performing one of her recent favorite comedy routines. She pretend sleeps when I call her name for anything. And she is legit — she snores and everything!)
Last night all of our dreams came true as we pulled into the real-deal Sanibel Island!
And after a successful day hunting for shark teeth….we were curious to see if Sanibel would be better.
And obviously….it was better!!!
We drove around the island at first, because we heard that “Bowman’s Beach” on Captive was a great place to start.
There was quite a bit on the ground, but based on the tide being a bit high, we decided to search in the water.
Micah and Scout had snorkels, and said they saw amazing stuff in the water. And only knee deep, we all found rad shells. It was the funnest day of our trip so far…by far. And that is saying a lot, because this trip has already been a slam dunk in the fun department.
This is my favorite picture of the whole trip.
My two youngest, both waist-deep in warm water, with their baskets ready to be filled — which soon after were.
Scout brought up this spindle sea star from the deep.
Then handed it off to Pippi.
The only sad part of today, was that I have almost no pictures, because we were all shelling…not taking pictures!
Back at the room, Navy caught two baby chameleons — one died during transport to the bag.
And then everyone zonked!
They all fell hard!
Except Micah, Doey and I.
We went out for a yummy dinner — where Doey ate everything we were looking at all day!
We couldn’t believe how much and what she ate!
—
And finally…how was the Pips?
Isn’t everyone perfect in heaven?
When we hopped in the car this morning to head over to the Gulf Coast, Navy said, “Finally….we are going to Sanibel!”
Well excuse me….I didn’t know that Disney was chump change!
Needless to say, the anticipation of the entire last year, was finally going to end…because today, we are going treasure hunting!
First stop….Casperson Beach to find shark teeth!
Of course we put a competition together.
And then our time in Heaven began.
Every single person in our group was in treasure-finding mode.
And it lasted for hours!
Navy happened upon a baby octopus!
Pippi chased birds all afternoon.
We finally had to call it a night when we couldn’t see any more.
We finally packed up and made our way south to the official “Sanibel Island”.
And my kids zonked in a split second — haha Doey in the back!
-
We found over 100 shark teeth in all. Scout found the biggest tooth, and Micah found the most. Every single person was as happy as can be — and that was without food or naps. It was our best day so far on this trip!
And Pippi???
A little dreamboat — even when she got stuck in these rocks.
Today we hit up Disney’s Wild Animal Kingdom, and had so much fun.
It was the perfect park for my kids — animal themed, with just enough education/attractions/rides to spend a full day of being entertained.
As we walked in, the “Tree of Life” was amazing. I think we spent at least 30 minutes pointing out all of the different animals carved into the tree. It was like a scavenger hunt, and was rad.
Then we spent the day at shows, where some people got scared!
And on rides, where lots of people got wet!
(Too bad Micah, Jon and Seth!)
We spent the afternoon with some up close and personal animals!
The playground area was really cool, until Dash showed Pippi the little waterfall that they both drenched themselves in.
Dash thought it was extra cool to fill his shoes up with the water like they were drinking cups.
I knew he would come unglued when he realized that those were the shoes he was going to wear the rest of the day.
Scout and Grant became masters of the wheelchair.
And my kids found the real-live Chip ‘n Dale!
Pippi was utterly obsessed, and went back for at least 50 hugs/kisses to these chipmunks and Rifiki from The Lion King.
We had a great time.
But the best part of the day, was when we closed the park down with three rides on the Kali River Rapids and Everest.
On the first Rapids ride, I switched seats in the middle so I didn’t get wet. When we got back, they wouldn’t let us go on again, but I opted out so everyone else could go on. On the remaining two rides, everyone but Scout and Dash got soaked! They were all dripping, but laughing so hard.
Then we ran over to finish our night off with Everest. We went on it about five times. We ran off it, and on it again and again. We tried the front, the back and the middle. We tried to get good pictures when the photo snapped. We begged them to let us just stay seated, but they made us get out and run around to the front of the line every time. And we actually were on the very last roller coaster of the night. It was a blast! And as much as I loved it, my kids loved it even more!
It was a great day.
—
As for Pippi…..
With the exception of the one time she ran away from security and made it onto this hill, she was perfect.
She bossed those goats around, loved her life-sized stuffed animals, played hard on the playground, died over the safari, and was a picture-perfect non-napped girl.
I went to Epcot when I was in 8th grade, and loved it! So I was really excited to take my kids there. I wasn’t sure if they were going to be too young or not — and it turns out that they were great ages. I’m sure the older you get, the more you absorb and appreciate, but they all loved our fun day among rides, educational shows, and different cultures.
We hit up the rides first. There weren’t too many people there, but we did have some waiting time. So we spent our time playing hot hands, or hanging upside down — including Pippi.
We stopped to sample all of the world’s soda flavors.
Italy’s was disgusting, and my kids thought it was hilarious that Cade has to have the gross one on his mission.
Then it was time to walk around to the countries. I loved this part in 8th grade, and I loved it as much now!
My kids chose China and Japan as their favorites.
They loved China because they were complimented over and over on their amazing pronunciation of Mandarin. Everyone stopped to listen to the two kids speaking, because they couldn’t believe how well the spoke!
They loved Japan because they got good miso soup. And the highlight of the day was in Japan. My kids watched the oyster beds for an hour, before Navy finally paid to open one with her own money. She watched and studied the process. The best pearls were either the black ones (that were more silver in color), or the big ones — bigger than 7.5 was very rare. When it was Navy’s turn, she knew the exact oyster she wanted. When they opened it, the lady went nuts because it was black and 8.25 in size! Navy was so elated, it was awesome.
One of the best stories of the day was Micah search for the bullfrogs, while the Chinese lady was scolding him.
Good thing he took the plunge to get this little mini frog!
We had the best time.
I swear that we have been getting so lucky on this trip, because each day is better than the last.
We are just hoping that our best is yet to come.
—
Oh yeah….how was Pippi?
Perfect.
After a good sleep, we all decided to go to Cape Canaveral. It was the day after a real rocket launch (I’m SO sad we missed it, and had I known — we would have flown a day earlier!), so it was a ghost town. We literally walked right into everything, and learned so much. It was a really cool day, and Micah said it was possibly his favorite thing from the trip.
Our bus tour was really educational, and awesome. Navy is in front of where the rockets sit before being launched.
The boys were loving the fact that there were alligators everywhere, and searched for them every time we drove by water. We saw two on our tour.
Here is the crew during a 3D movie.
Notice that Nonnie is far away, so she could “enjoy the movie without Pippi climbing everywhere”.
At first Pippi loved the movie, and was trying to grab everything that popped out at her.
But then my mom’s prediction came true, and Pippi and I left the movie a few minutes early to walk the halls.
Doey was rad as always. She was fun with the kids, and she got the very important job of pushing my mom in the wheelchair (due to my mom’s back surgery just a few weeks ago).
On the way out, my mom bought this “Atlantis” spaceship for Dash, and he flew it all the way back to the car — noises and all!
That kid is to die for.
It was a really fun and very educational day. Scout loved it, because he is currently learning about this stuff in school right now. The highlights were the Atlantis movie, the rocket launcher simulator, and the reenactment of the Apollo mission to the moon.
When we were walking out, Doey got fired — due to 4×4ing my mom in her chair!
And the Pips today?
Perfect!
NO-NAP-LATE-LUNCH PERFECT!
The highly-anticipated trip has finally come!
I have always loved the idea of surprises, but the build up to this trip has been SOOO fun!
Just the other day, I asked this question, “Okay guys…what is the best trip you have ever been on?” Navy said, “Mom, do we have to have already been on it?”
Since DOey was with us in the beginning stages of the YouTube Sanibel craze — she was obviously needing to come with us.
When we went to get her, Megan gave each of my kids a huge bag of goodies for the plane and trip.
And when I say huge…I mean HUGE!
And of course, there was a bag for the parents too.
How awesome is she!
Here is the airport mayhem.
The big question mark in the air about this whole trip was….how will Pippi be?
Micah and Nonnie were especially worried about the plane.
I told both of them to not be babies, because I would take her the whole time.
And check out sleeping beauty.
Her nap wasn’t long, but she wasn’t bad at all. I was impressed — and so were the two high-maintenance travelers who didn’t want to be anywhere near her on the plane.
When we landed, got our luggage, got the rental van, and then made our way to the hotel…I made everyone hop in the car for a quick “trick or treating” session. We knew it was late, but knew at least one door would have pity on five grungy kids ringing their doorbell so late.
Good thing our first house had a cauldron full of candy, where my kids stuffed their pockets.
And the other house was rad, and figured something out to put in their bags.
(I won’t go into the rager party we stopped at, where I asked the lady of there was trick or treating still going on. Her answer of, “Huh? I don’t think we are on the same planet right now” got us all walk/running back to our van.)
Day 1 was rad.
The Chili Cook Off and Trunk or Treat was a hit.
Ka was dying over “Pippi”.
We were dying over Pippi’s teacher!
Navy was dying over the cornbread muffins that Pippi was feeding her.
And Pippi was dying over catching the super fast Dash for a hug.
-
And we were all dying over Scout, who came up with a game for our trunk, put it together with buckets and balls, then manned our trunk the whole time without leaving his post once. Everyone was so impressed with him — as was I when we went home and he cleaned up his whole mess.
Frick and Frack are the best of friends. They love their mornings together. And every step of the morning, I see Frick doing something, and then Frack follows. If Frick is playing magnets, Frack is playing magnets. If Frick wants cereal, Frack wants “eerio”. If Frick is whining, Frack echos those same whines. And if Frick thinks that “swimming” in the bath is a good time, Frack is swimming right beside him.
I love these little Best Friends.
| DESIGN BY