Florida Trip Recap Part 1

Saturday, February 13 

Our first "real" day of vacation. Girls all wanted to go to the beach. Jena suggested Sombrero beach. It was like off of a postcard! 

Finding parking was TERRIBLE but we finally secured a spot and the girls were running for the water! 

Alivia basically jumped right in the ocean, swimming like a fish. Loved every part of it. 

Natalie thought it was still cold, but eventually got in. She spent a lot of time at the water's edge, searching for the best shells to take home. 

McKayla was somewhere in the middle. Not quite eager to get in, but once she was in there, loved it! She made a "friend" with a small hermit type crab. Was quite disappointed when she wasn't allowed to bring it home. 

Palm tree complete with COCONUTS! 

You could just watch the boats going by

Just incredible soft sand and tolerable water temps

After the beach, we hung around Jena's place. These are by the docs where they rent boats, jet skis and the such. I found it quite amusing that the pelicans were all on top of the wood poles. Like fixtures they were constantly there! (Expect more pelican pics, we LOVED these guys!) 

Natalie enjoying her view of the Gulf. 

We were blessed to be able to stay with Jena several nights and the others she put us up at Captain Pip's Marina and Hideaway. Pips' has a marina and is situated right next to the gulf. 

The first lizard I saw! 

Sunday, February 14 

We headed North-East to Islamorada. Stephen insisted that one of the things we do was feed the tarpon at Robbie's. Apparently it is a thing and we figured out why! It was HOT over there. While attempting to feed the tarpon, you have to keep a close eye on the pelicans because they want those fish! 

You feed them through the nets that this bad boy is standing on! 

HUGE fish! I think of them as the sturgeon of the gulf. ;) 

Stephen learned from his last trip and showed us how to do it. 

Still scary though! I think I fed ONE fish to those suckers before I was too scared of the pelicans. Natalie refused to even touch the fish and Alivia wasn't too keen to try either. 

While at Robbie's we did some souvenir shopping at their open air market and ate snow cones! Seriously hotter there then it was in Marathon, so by the time we left, all the girls (and Stephen) were hot and cranky. 

For our lunch, we decided to splurge and went to the Florida Keyes Steak and Lobster House. It was a lot of waiting because of a wait staff error, but we were rewarded for our patience with key lime pie! The food was seriously amazing though and our waitress couldn't have been nicer.

Stephen liked the marlin wall art (metal!) 

The girls, thrilled with me taking pictures 

The pie we all shared, it was YUMMY! 

When we returned to Pip's, I saw this guy. I think he was the biggest one I saw while there, but maybe not. I think I took pictures of every one of them. So cool looking and they just chill out anywhere. 

For dinner we got to eat some fresh caught lobster, cooked cuban style by a friend of Jena's. Alivia "helped" cook, but I think she was more showing Sammy her videos lol