More Beaches.

We're still in Florida, and the water adventures continue.

First off, Aunt Steff (note: not a real aunt but has attained aunt status anyway) took us to Egmont Key. This was the most amazing and yet most difficult day trip in recent memory. Steff thought we were going to a ghost town on an island but we quickly discovered that the ghost town was quite a long trek out with many small children so we headed to the beach instead. The beach was amazing--clear blue-green water, very few people, and the island is also a wildlife preserve, so there were tons of birds and turtles and other animals to see. But while we were dressed and prepped to get wet, neither of us was really prepped to spend three hours at a beach with our children. Plus, on Egmont Key, there are no roads or stores or anything of the kind. I was extremely ill-prepared but we had so much fun anyway. 

Our ferry captain looked exactly the part. He even went by Captain Zip. He had a totally beachy surfer/hippie vibe and let my kids take turns steering the boat. We saw dolphins and loggerhead turtles while we sailed. Sailed? Ferried? Boated? Pontooned? Onwarded ho? Land ahoy-ed? I'm really quite the expert at these nautical terms.

The funsters. Beck couldn't be bothered by being in a photo because June was holding m&m's. All you will find pictured is his outreached hand.

Egmont Key was used as a fort in the olden days so we were able to look through several batteries on the island.

What's that sound you hear? Why that's none other than the sound of my checking off another day on my homeschooling tally. That's right, folks. This ended up being a totally educational field trip, and I didn't even mean for it to be. Check check check.

We finally made it to the beach, and it was basically empty because it was a Monday and very few people had chosen to ferry/sail/climb-aboard-the-ship-of-Captain-Zip themselves over.

Now when I say was unprepared, what I mean is:

The List of Things I Did Not Bring:

A stroller (and we walked forever and Beck was soooooooooooo heavy)

Goggles

Puddlejumpers

Dan 

My Sanity

Bug Spray (I have soooooooooo many bug bites. So do the kids, but I'm mostly concerned with myself here.)

A phone that is connected to a good network (I went to an uber cheap network a year ago. No regrets, except for that one fateful day on Egmont Key where I wasn't connected to anything and couldn't even connect the rest of the way home and had to figure out how to get back to Sarasota an HOUR away without any GPS and I did it and I'm so proud of myself because I regularly get lost going to my own backyard)

And then yesterday, we headed back to the same area to beach it up at Fort DeSoto. This time, we were super prepared, and Dan came, and all was well in the land, er . . . ocean. Gulf, really.

We found these hermit crabs, but they were just so hermit-y and all defense mechanism-y and wouldn't come out and say hi, so back into the water they went, followed quite closely by June "Jane Goodall of the Waters" Jolley. Dan bought June some snorkeling gear, and she swam closely behind these guys for a good chunk of our beach time, observing every move they made. She said they were quite fast when they weren't freaked out by a bunch of humans forcing them into a small blue bucket.

June is the most interesting kid. It can take her 9832432 hours to finish a math problem because she is SOOOOOOOO distracted, but let her follow her own interests, and she is the most focused child I have ever seen. Those interests are: reading, animals, drawing, and the water.

Fort DeSoto really did have the most amazing shells, and it's not even known for that. Every year we visit the beach, I tell everyone I am going to make something for our wall at home with the cool beaches we collect. I have never done this, but this is the year.

And of course, church today:

The End.