Happy Belated Birthday America!

It's true, I took a little long to post these. That is probably because I took over one hundred pictures on the Fourth of July. (This was mainly because everything was happening so far away I was having a hard time focusing my camera.)

For the Fourth, we bummed some space and AC off of our dear family friend Judi Groom. She was kind enough to let the Crosby Clan, sans Poppa Crosby, invade her condo for the day on Anna Maria Island.

The day before, Katie and I spent the afternoon at the J.W. Marriott Resort in Orlando with my family. (I highly recommend it!) We ended up spending somewhere around 4 hours in the pool/lazy-river there. Kaitlyn loves water, see previous post with her wading in our toilet. However, she hates getting anything resembling dirt on her feet and shoes. So, we got her ready for the beach and gave a wager that she'd only last 15-20 minutes. I was very, very wrong.

Apparently Kaitlyn's loathing of dirty feet is over shadowed by her love/need of having a job. The sand provided that job: fill bucket, dump bucket out, fill bucket, dump bucket out, fill bucket, dump bucket out, and on, and on, and on.

She did eventually realize that sand was sticking to her and it caused a moment of panic...

that was diffused by her Grammie burying her foot in the sand and saying, "So, what?"

Uncle Johnny, who is visiting from California, got in on working in the sand. Kaitlyn was amazed at the use of his hands.

Then it was time to go back out in the water, which temperature was much like a bathtub. On our previous excursion into the Gulf (which was uncharacteristically rough for a day without a hurricane warning) Katie had decided she'd rather be held and jump over the waves, than ride in an inner-tube.

Kaitlyn also became fascinated with Grammie's floppy straw hat.

There was a lot of seaweed in the water. The gulls kept hovering over it, eating all of the little fishes that were feasting off of it. Kaitlyn felt the need to "gift" the seaweed to people.

By the time we made it back from our second excursion into the Gulf, Uncle Johnny had half buried himself in the beach.

We then went to go rinse off and play in the pool. Too bad, the shower was hard to find and everyone had used the pool to rinse off. Yucky. Not to mention, the pool was warmer than the Gulf water. But that didn't diminish Katie's need to jump off the wall into the water over and over again.

All in all, it was ridiculously good weather for July in Florida. Jake was ready to camp out on the beach that night. This was probably due to all of the cloud cover that gave us a very pathetic excuse for a sunset.



But it didn't stop us from enjoying our evening. Kaitlyn was still fascinated with the water and was grabbing at every hand available to her to keep her down by the shore.

Shortly after the light disappeared, fireworks slowly but surely started making their appearance. Sitting on the beach is really the best way to enjoy such a bright and joyful display. We loved it!