Fort Myers & Sanibel Island

This is how the trip began...little Samantha trying her darndest to make a pouty face without actually being sad in the least.  It was so CUTE!  We just returned from our week long vacation to Sanibel Island last night.  We had SO MUCH fun!  It really was one of the best vacations we have had.  We learned so much and had a wonderful time reconnecting with cousins, Auntie Sarah and Grandparents.  It was great.  We did both legs (there and back…4 full days) WITHOUT a dvd player.  HA! We couldn't find ours and I didn’t want to buy another one, so we borrowed one, which upon trying didn’t work, so we did the entire thing without TV.  That is monumental IN AND OF ITSELF.  Seriously. There were many times of crazy, but all in all I think it was successful.

This is a Grandpa Hart tradition.  I think I have a picture of each one of my children helping Grandpa putting bird seeds in the feeder.  Cute kids...cute Grandpa for that matter :)

 I was bound and determined to get family pictures of the Hart's :)  This one is Great Grandma Shockey (Carole's mother) with the Hart's, Andy and Sarah.  I think Andy is really working the camera here HA!

I thought this one was particularly cute of the three of them.

 The Entire Clan.  If you look really closely at this picture there are some really fun expressions.  Andy is working it (again! Love him.), Annika looks like she is giving the death stare to the camera, Ty and Eli are just chilling, Kaylee is concentrating really hard (see those fists), Audrie's eyes are about to pop out of her head, Lach is trying so hard to smile while Sam wriggles out of his lap,and Sam is like, "Really? I am so done with this."  Good times, good times!

The next day we drove to Sanibel Island.  We stayed on a little, quaint beach house that had direct access to the beach.  The ocean was beautiful.  It was an aqua color some days and a bluer color others, but it was just beautiful.  The picture above shows the view right outside the beach house.

On the beaches there were several roped off portions that had signs near them.  They were where sea turtles had laid their eggs!  In fact the resorts their aren’t allowed to have outside lights anywhere near the beach due to the baby turtles.  They hatch and find their way to the ocean by following the moonlight; thus not to create any confusion they blackout any portion of any lights facing the ocean.  Cool huh?

We tried to be cool and take up some body boarding.  Doesn't Audrie look like an Awesome surfer girl here?  Well, honestly none of us got it down very well, or the waves weren't cooperating, not sure which, but those kids had an absolute BLAST with that thing.  Annika and Eli got some too and they all had a ball.  I think they would have spent all day riding the waves if they were allowed to!

On one of the beaches during a low tide Sammy and Tyler could walk out for quite a while just in a few inches of water.  Gorgeous eh?

 Sanibel is known for all of their shells.  Because the island runs north to south in the gulf it catches all the sea shells, so the beaches are FILLED with shells.  As you can imagine it is a lot of fun for curious minds (including mine!) to rummage through the shells to find some fun ones to bring home.  And we did find some super fun ones.  Also because of the shells we had to wear swimming shoes the entire while on the beach due to cut feet from the first day (we live we learn eh?). Above Tyler is digging trying to find some cool ones!

 There was also a pool, which actually was a great middle ground.  We would go to the beach, get covered in sand, rinse off on the pool side showers and hop in.  It was a great little system that helped break up the heat.

Here is curious, cute little Sam.  There were little lizards EVERYWHERE.  I mean you had to watch where you stepped at times to make sure you didn't squash one, but Sam was fascinated by them!  You can see one that caught her eye if you look closely.

 Cute, growing up, little man Tyler.  Such a handsome guy.

 Also in the Gulf where Sanibel is located there is a large population of dolphins. We were able to go on a boat ride to find dolphins and we found some!  It was so neat to see them up close and personal in their habitat.  All enjoyed thoroughly!

 Carole and Lach in their element!  I heard a few boating stories while we were there and apparently they were quite the boaters before Sarah and Andy came along.

 The kids in heaven!

 The natural beauty Miss Annika.  Such a sweet, soft spoken girl.  Love her.

And last but not least the dolphins we saw.  I didn't get very good pictures of them, but this is the best one.  Our three dolphin buddies :)