Finally...FLORIDA!

Okay, I know it has taken me FOREVER to post about this, but I took literally hundreds of pictures on this trip, so I had to cull through each of those, pick the ones I wanted to post, edit them and load them to Blogger. I have to find a website or something that tells me how to do that faster. It took me so long just to get the pictures on here, then they were in the wrong order and there is no easy way to rearrange them. I'm sure there is a better way, I just don't know it yet. I did fiddle with my blog a little bit and figured out how to make the pictures bigger, and apparently some of them are TOO big. At this point I refuse to fix it. I am DONE with this post!

Anywho...

THIS precious boy...

...did not know who in the heck I was. But aren't those peepers purty?

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Day 1:

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We got to Florida at about 10:30 in the morning. Susan's wretched boss wouldn't let her off of work, so BJ and the kids picked us up at the airport. We had no definite plans for the day, but Jacob was dying to see the ocean for the first time, so we went home and changed clothes, grabbed some sub sandwiches and hit the beach.

This is Jacob going into the water for the first time.

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Sweet, fearless Ava was right behind him.

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She had just turned 2 a few weeks before, but she is a really good swimmer. She usually swims in pools, though. I have to tell you, this girl kills me. She is about the cutest thing you have ever seen in your life, and she is SPUN-KY with a capital S.

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Nothing like her mama, ahem.

"What? There's a camera on me?"

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BJJacob had a great time playing in the water with JacobUncle BJ.

BJ is one of those really great uncles, because he really plays with the kids and seems to enjoy it almost as much as they do!

The color varies on a lot of these pictures because I was experimenting with the white balance settings on my camera to check out the effect. I also experimented some during editing, so I wasn't very consistent.

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What's a day at the beach without being buried in the sand?

Is there anything in the world better than seeing your kid have to throw his head back in laughter because he's having so much fun?

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Of course, Ava had to do it as well...


I think for a 2-year old, she was very tolerant of the sand, but...


...enough is ENOUGH.


Bless it, I just can't stand it. She is just so cute and funny to me!

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Alan spent some time in the water with Jacob, too.

Despite all of my warnings and attempts to put sunscreen on Alan, he burnt to a crisp. Again.

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I played in the water quite a bit myself, and BJ actually took the camera out and took some pictures that *gasp* had me in them! Of course, I'm not about to post pictures of me 7 months pregnant in a bathing suit, but hey, at least there is a digital record somewhere now that I exist and I was on this trip!

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I don't know how I managed to not get a picture of Susan. She got to the beach at about 3:30-ish, and we stayed for a couple more hours, then we went home and grilled some yummy steaks and crashed. I'll wrap up my account of the first day with a couple more pictures of this cutie:

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Day 2:

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On Saturday morning we went over to BJ's parent's house to spend the day swimming in their pool and to celebrate Ava's 2nd birthday. And when I say, "spend the day swimming", I mean that Jacob got in that pool at 11:30 am and didn't come out until about 8:30 pm. He was SO wrinkled and his feet were actually sore from the bottom of the pool the next day.

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He just LOVES swimming:

Can you tell?

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BJ's sister Christina and her husband Frank were there with their beautiful kids as well:

Rebecca, 1 1/2

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Ryan, 3 (I think)

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and

Andrew, 5

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BJ's mother, father and his brother Justin and his wife Kassie were there as well, but I hardly got any pictures of the grown-ups. I did get a couple of shots:

Andrew and Pops (BJ's dad)

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and

Susan and Ava.

That ^^^ is where Tyler gets the purty peepers.
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Ava blowing out her birthday candles.

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And that concludes Day 2 of our trip!

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Day 3:

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On Day 3, BJ and his family rented a boat and we went out and spent a good portion of the day on the water. But before we left the house, I got a chance to take some more pictures:

Ava and Jacob

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Most of the time Jacob is pretty indifferent to Ava. As 1) a little girl, and 2) a much younger little girl, he pretty much has no use for her. He doesn't mind her, but he is not nearly as impressed with her as I am. I think she feels pretty much the same way about him.

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But when it comes to her little brother...

...there's definitely at least some affection. They are too precious!

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I actually took more pictures of Tyler than I have here, but for some reason a disproportionate amount of those turned out blurry. Still learning with this camera. These are a tad blurry too, but he's such a cutie it's easy to see past my photographic shortcomings:

He is an unbelievably sweet baby with a smile that can part clouds, but it seems that most of the time I was shooting him, he was not happy with me.

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We got on the boat before lunch and traveled to a beach, where we anchored near the shore and put up canopies. Then we grilled out with a portable grill and hung out on the beach most of the day.

My little Yankee boy wasn't really used to the heat, but he was fine since we were in water pretty much the whole time.

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This time around he and Andrew decided to try to build a sandcastle.

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Jacob also found some weird-looking creature, which we were told by the natives was a sea urchin:*

After playing for a little while longer, we got back to the boat and headed back to Naples. When we got back to the house, Susan got really sick and went to bed with a bug. At that point we were all pretty exhausted anyway, and we had to leave for the airport the next morning by 6:15 am, so I doubt we would have had an all-night gab session anyway!

We had SUCH a wonderful time. I love being in Florida with the beautiful weather and water, and I love seeing my sister and her family, so it really couldn't have been better (except for Susan getting sick--wouldn't wish that on her again!). We can't wait to do it again.