"That" Beach Vacation

 This year's beach vacation will forever live in infamy, and will from this point on be known as "that" beach vacation.  As in, remember "that" vacation when we had the kidney stone issue.  Or, remember "that" vacation when 14 of us got the stomach virus.  Or, remember "that" vacation when two people (none of our party) got attacked by a shark and they closed down the beaches.  Yeah, it was an interesting week to say the least.  It was definitely not business as usual.    Nonetheless, only one of the Sanders crew got sick and we still had a great time. 









One of the nice things about the kids getting older is that they have more independence at the beach.  This makes me happy because I can stay on the beach while they go fishing or go to the pool.  I, therefore, spent most of my days on the beach.  The kids were also down there some.  They tried boogie-boarding on a few different days, but the waves weren't very good so it didn't last long.  The older girls like walking down the beach and checking things out.  Yep, they're getting older.

 The kids did spend a lot of time in the pool this year.  All of the older kids are good swimmers, so they also had a little more freedom to swim on their own.

 Hurricane Irma knocked down a portion of the pier last fall.  It had been knocked down the year before by hurricane Matthew and they rebuilt it, but after it got knocked down a second time they decided to wait awhile before deciding if they want to rebuild again.  I don't know if it will ever  reach it's former glory.  Because the pier is so much shorter, the window for fishing is limited to high tide. Still, the kids went out there and had a great time.  The pier is Brian's preferred place to be, so he also was out there a lot.

 A factor that had a major influence on where the kids hung out was where the babies were hanging out.  We have no shortage of little ones in our family- 5 kids under the age of 3.  The older kids love hanging out with their little cousins. 

 Because so many people were getting sick, we went out to eat more than we normally do.  We usually all eat together for the majority of the week, but no one wanted to chance catching the bug.  This gave us a chance to revisit some of our favorite restaurants like The Surf and The Salty Pelican.  And, as always, we went for ice cream downtown.  We were also pleased to see that the fake shark was back at the marina.

Even though there were some bumps in the road this year, we still had a great vacation.  We love spending time with our family, even if things are crazy.