Christmas Vacation Part 2

Here we are at Barefoot Beach watching the sunrise- (Just kidding, yea right) the sunset. Each day the weather was beautiful. I have been working on making my kids Christmas stockings out of felt, so each time we went to the beach I brought a stocking to work on. They took me forever and I only got Paul and Ellie's done.

The beach is so interesting. One thing I have learned about living here is that each beach can be so different! 100 feet down one beach can be different, and it can be different the next day!
For example we went to Fort Myers beach a couple of weeks ago-it had hundreds of dead horseshoe crabs washed up on shore, living sand dollars everywhere, and starfish- we went to the same beach a couple of days ago and didn't see any of those things! Also, about a month ago we went to Clam Pass and there were thousands of Fighting Conch Shells climbing all over the place. We went to Clam Pass this morning and didn't see a one. Sometimes you will see dolphins all over in the water, and sometimes you don't see one. Sometimes there are no waves, and sometimes the waves are 3 feet tall. Sometimes the water is clear, sometimes is not. It's pretty cool to be learning about the beach and how different it can be!

Paul watching the sunset.

Ellie, Paul and Kyle digging under this cool palm tree on the beach.

Here is Manatee Park. There is a power plant that spills warm water out into a river and all the Manatee's come there for the winter cause they like the warmer water. We saw a couple manatee's even though the river was pretty muddy. It was pretty cool.

Ellie, Kyle, Paul and Erica

Darren and me. Sorry Darren, but I have a new boyfriend.

Ellie, Kyle and me

This was actually a fake gator. It's hard to tell the difference. Not a mistake I would want to ever make.

Cute kids. It was pretty hot that day (what's new, it's hot every day) and the kids weren't to crazy about the park. I thought it was worth going to.