I've been trying to finish this post for a week now, but it's been a busy week! We've had lots of special company, and just keeping three kids going is enough work for this pregnant lady!
Anyway, it would have been much more satisfying to publish these pictures back when they were taken, in the frozen grayness of February. Showing pictures of Florida when it is becoming increasingly warm and green, even here in NY, is not going to make people envious. And that, of course, is the point of vacation photos. Oh, well, I wanted to put them up sometime!
Here is the inevitable tantrum. Inevitable if you're Cheyenne, anyway. As she stomps off, she tells Tori, "You're making me do EVERYTHING!" As if that wasn't what she was after the whole time...
Actually, I'm kind of impressed with her LACK of meltdown here, when Elliott was busy inserting himself into the show.
The grand finale dance, and the bow.
Elliott enjoyed playing Wiffle ball. Here he is after hitting the ball THREE TIMES!
A family portrait, the first Sunday we were there. All looking good, except for the little pout-face on my lap.
Rilla, playing while singing "Tell Me the Story of Jesus." She's kind of a cute little songbird!
One of our big outings was to the circus!
It's the winter circus in Sarasota-- it had some pretty impressive acts!
One of the most heart-stopping ones was this-- a seven-person pyramid on the tightrope.
And yeah, they didn't have a safety net.
And yeah, when it already looked impossible, they stopped in the middle so the top lady could stand up on her chair! Needless to say, it was quite a relief when they all got to the other side.
One morning, Olivia, Marilyn and I drove up to Tampa to IKEA (swoon). Here is one of Olivia's shots of the Sunshine Skyway bridge.
Coming into the city off the bridge.
Palm trees! Olivia forgot her camera in the car, so we don't have any pictures of the umpteen hours we walked around IKEA. I had expected to spend about an hour there-- I'm not much of a shopper at all. Well, we ended up eating a morning snack AND lunch there, as well as wandering around looking at things for three straight hours. Knowing Evan wouldn't want to pack anything extra in the van, and that I already had WAY too much luggage for the plane kind of put the kibosh on actually purchasing much. I'll always have my memories, though...
One Saturday, Dana and Marilyn took pity on my poor beach-deprived children, and took them out to the beach, despite the fact it was a breezy 50°.
Which didn't deter Cheyenne from wading.
The surf (with it's six-inch waves) was a little scary to her-- "I need to get away!"
This is Elliott's reaction to the water-- run far away, fast!
He would brave the waves to throw shells in, though-- and THEN run away really fast.
He liked writing in the sand. This picture doesn't really do justice to the psychological damage inflicted on him that day-- I had brought two of his sweatshirts with us, but I realized when we got there that one was way too small. This Saturday was a wash day, so we had to wash his one sweatshirt. So he was forced to wear his sister's pink sweatshirt. Not only that, his only clean shirt was a coral color-- and his only clean pants were WAY too big. So we have coral shirt, hot pink sweatshirt, pants that dropped to his ankles with no provocation-- all topped (or bottomed) off with some bright red Crocs. The poor kid will be in therapy for years.
As our vacation progressed, though, Elliott did become braver about the water-- this is a warmer day, when we all went out.
Elliott with his trusty pail.
Two skinny little minnies-- this is before the sunburn set in.
Olivia, checking out the shells in the shallows.
Marilyn sculpted wet sand sculptures by letting the sand dribble through her hand.
Elliott, digging away.
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Pouring water on a buried Olivia.
Sculpting Olivia into a mermaid.
Although, due to a little overenthusiastic application of sand from Cheyenne and Elliott, she ended up looking a little more like a manatee!
That was before Tori dumped a bucket of salt water on her, splashing her face liberally.
The manatee emerges!
Cheyenne got her turn at being buried.
It ended up being more of a half-mermaid, in her case.
Elliott's turn!
Showing a handful of sand and shells!
Of course, being Elliott, he got a little bothered about dirty hands!
Little wind-blown girl!
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Rilla wasn't any too sure about the beach.
She hung pretty close to Daddy or Mommy!
She finally did agree to a walk with Evan-- normally, it was lots of carrying instead of walking!
She did have luscious little cheeks, red from sun and wind!
Sitting with Daddy.
Olivia, really immersing herself. After all, the water temperature was almost up to 60°!
Dad, despite his hatred of the heat, is not too fond of cold water, so this was about all the ocean contact he had.
Now that I have these pictures up, maybe I'll get around to some pictures of our spring eventually!