Anna Maria Island - Beach Living at Its Best

The last month has been a bit crazy, hence the lack of faithful posts.  Our apologies to the faithful readers, we’ll promise to try and do better so that you don’t abandon us! :)  But, we'll try and catch it all up here in a few posts - all in one fell swoop!

The last post of course was the news of the passing of Amy’s Dad.  That weekend, Amy’s highschool roommate and dear friend, Carmen Gruia and her family flew from Portland, Oregon to enjoy some warm weather at the beach.  Carmen has three children – Anique (8), Ava (6) and Andon (2).  Karis had to fly up to Chicago that weekend for a continuing education class, so we hung around Orlando that weekend until he returned on Sunday night before heading out to the beach.  We had a lovely time in Orlando though – and took the kids to the zoo on Sunday where they had these cool air balls that the kids would be zipped into and could “run”/flip/crawl around inside the ball to get it to move around on a shallow pool of water.  The kids thought that it was a blast!

A little older, hopefully wiser, but still the best of friends!

Monday morning we loaded the van and car and headed off to Anna Maria Island, where we had rented a 6 bedroom house.  It was awesome , about 1.5 blocks from the beach down a very quiet street, heated pool, pool table and lots of room for all of us to spread out.  The beach was pretty quiet, with the water being pretty shallow so the kids could go and play.  Unfortunately the water was a little chillier than we would have desired but after the initial “brisk”reaction it was just fine to get into the water and play. On Thursday the wind kicked up a little bit and the kids were actually able to boogie-board. Zachary managed to figure out how to handle his board all by himself because the waves were pretty small and broke close to shore – so he confidently informed his father that he would NOT be needing assistance in the future. Good luck Zachary when we take you back to the Daytona side of Florida where the waves are bigger, faster and crest much farther out where you would have to be in much deeper water trying to get on the board! But, we’ll let the dream live a little longer…..



Doesn't this house just exude "beach"!? It was just around the corner from Publix (as well as the beach) - it was PERFECT!

Hurrah for being buried! - Zachary, Kaleb and Ava enjoyed the sand

Three beach babes - Ava, Carmen and Anique

Boogie Boarding School! :)

On Friday we packed up and headed to Legoland.  The fact that it was a Friday and RAINING made us think that it would be relatively deserted.  No such luck – 45 to 80 minute waits for rides.  Ouch.  But, we had fun anyway and enjoyed trekking around the park. 

Sabbath we ended our week and on the way back to Orlando we stopped at the Clearwater Aquarium where the famous dolphin “Winter” who lost part of her tail lived.  It was pretty neat to see the documentary on how they made the prosthetic tail for her.  The bad part of the trip was that the aquarium is tiny and they don’t have room to handle all of the visitors now that they have become famous – so cars had to park on a gravel dirt lot.  As Amy was walking into the aquarium she went to put her smartphone into her backpack and dropped it – only to have it drop face first down on a protruding rock.  You guessed it – smashed to smithereens.  It still worked but it was a cool $100 to get it fixed.  Thanks for nothing!  Oh well, could have been worse.

We were sad to see the week end with our visit with the Gruias.  We had such fun – we’ll want to do it again soon!  The boys actually played perfectly together with the girls – we weren’t sure as sometimes our kids can be little wild Indians, but they were on their best behavior all week and they had a blast playing together.  Interestingly enough, they kind of switched who they played with throughout the week,  but it seemed like Zachary and Anique gravitated toward each other and Ava and Kaleb paired off – even though Zachary and Ava are the same age.  It's apparently a love of older women! :)

Uncle Ervin was "playing" the children's feet like a piano - to which they were of course laughing hysterically!

One of the first nights at the beach, we headed down to a nearby playground that was housed on the beach itself.  While there, one of the trip's highlights was the fact that a dolphin was visible just off the shore as he swam around the water - coming up periodically and of course giving us much excitement!

Ervin and Andon on the walk back after the dolphin excitement!

Chasing the sea gulls while we waited for the dolphin to surface

Phrase of the week:  Zachary's was his comment that weekend prior to leaving for Anna Maria Islando when he solemnly asked Amy "Mommy, can one of my girlfriend's ride in the car with me to the beach?"  There truly is no question that Zachary loves his "girlfriends!" :)  Lately, Kaleb has been very "Daddy-centric" and all roads lead to Daddy, so this week's phrase is devoted to Daddy. "No, I want to be with Daddy.  No, I want to snuggle with Daddy.  I want to ride in the car with Daddy.  I want to sit on Daddy's lap.  I want Daddy to hold me.....DADDY!"