Tobie and I went on a wonderful "kid free" (Thanks Mom and Dad) vacation to Key West. We packed in a ton of activities into the time we were there and were exhausted when we got home. That is how trips are supposed to be right:-) I put just a fraction of the pictures we took here. We had a blast and would definitely go back. It was hot, but not as hot as Houston. I think we felt the heat more because we walked or rode a bike everywhere we went. So we ended up spending more time then we ever would in the heat. Luckily where we were staying was centrally located, so we could keep stopping in to cool off.
We took a trip to the local cemetery were there were lots of "famous" Key West people buried. But what we went looking for was this head stone. If you ask me it sums up the whole Key West attitude, in that nothing is taken too seriously. One stone next to it said "I'm just resting my eyes".
This is the fort that was built on the Dry Tortugas. It never served as a working fort, and at one time they used it for a prison. It was quite a strange site to see this pop up in the middle of the ocean. It was 75 miles west of Key West, so the trip there took over 2 hours. When you were there you were closer to Cuba than you were to the U.S. It was worth it, but next time I would find a different way there, then on a tourist boat. Maybe charter a boat out, because it is a national park, so you can camp.
We made two snorkeling trips. One off of a beach in Key West and another we went to the Dry Tortugas. We managed to see some wonderful wildlife and were actually able to get some good shots, using our new camera. The barracuda was a little off putting. His stare made you think that at anytime he would turn and bite. Off the beach, I am pretty sure I saw three black tip sharks, no photo though because Tobie had the camera. At the same time I saw a sting ray swim by.
Tobie and I went to tons of restaurants that ranged from shacks to fine dining. We really put a lot of thought into where we went, because we did not want to just go to any old tourist trap. We thought we would actually lose weight while we were there because we walked, biked or snorkeled everywhere. But as always, the food won:-) This picture of Tobie was taken at BO's Fish Wagon. Wonderful food! I had a cracked conch sandwich. Yum, Yum.
Hemingway's house was only one block from where we stayed, so it was an easy trip to make on foot. Which was lucky because the parking was a nightmare in front and all around the house. It was a beautiful house with equally beautiful gardens. Tons of history. Very interesting life. I really went because I wanted to see the six toed cats. Turns out not every cat there has 6 toes but they all carry the gene. Each cat is allowed only one litter of cats and then is "retired" from the breeding life. The cats were all over, but not as bad as I thought it would be. The cat pictured did have six toes, so if you click on the picture you could probably get a better look. Now I am on the hunt for a 6 toed cat, so if anyone knows of one, let me know!
The place that we stayed in Key West was perfectly placed. We were one block off of Duval Street (the main drag) and 7 to 8 blocks in each direction to most attractions that we were interested in. The walk to the southern most point was just that, 7 or 8 blocks.
This summer while we were Galveston the kids and I took one day off from going to the beach and we headed to Moody Gardens. We saw the 3D Shark movie and then went to the moving dinosaur exhibit. We were pretty disappointed in the animated dinosaurs and the kids spent most of the time digging in the pretend excavation site.
The kids took turns being buried in the sand.
One of the first days we were there a small lagoon formed and Ivy had a blast.
It took us about half of the trip to realize that there was wonderful crabbing opportunities available to us. We attempted the 'ole string, chicken neck and a net procedure, with no luck. Then one night the neighbor came over to give us a bag of left over crabs. He was catching so many that they could not eat them! So then, we adopted a different way of crabbing, and had major success. Every night after we ate crab. And in the mornings when we would ask Ivy what she wanted for breakfast, her reply was always, "Crab." 
We also ended up catching so many crab we could not eat them in one sitting. Here is a picture of the craziness in the refrigerator.
Since I have been so bad about keeping up with what we did this summer I thought I would start adding random pictures. These first two are of the kids at Gran and Papa's pool, on just one of many swimming afternoons.
A neighbor had a fish fry...neighborhood kids played like crazy on a water slide. This was later that night, they actually took a break for popsicles.
Izaac was old enough for "Take your kid to work day" and he was so excited! As you can see in this picture they set up a desk for him and he took it really seriously. He played office for days afterward, and if you got his pens out of order...watch out! Future engineer?
This was a picture after a birthday party, not even sure whose it was at this point. But they LOVED the silly glasses!
Well, we finally bit the bullet so to speak and decided to have someone come in and do our floors. We had a hard time deciding what we wanted and where it would go. The first thoughts were to have wood through out alot of the down stairs. But, our rooms do not have very good divisions and we were worried that there would be too many transitions. So to solve the problem we decided to tile the whole thing. Turns out we really like it!
These pictures are just showing some of the mess we had to deal with and actually still are. The company wanted to tile right up to the baseboards and then put shoe molding in to cover the transition. But we did not want that because our already short baseboards would be even shorter. So Tobie tore out the base boards and we replaced them with taller ones.
The study got the wood, but this picture was taken before it was put in. I will add more pictures soon. The house is so different now. We have painted the walls and Tobie is in the process of putting in chair railing and crown molding in the dining room...
Tobie and I went on a wonderful "kid free" (Thanks Mom and Dad) vacation to Key West. We packed in a ton of activities into the time we were there and were exhausted when we got home. That is how trips are supposed to be right:-) I put just a fraction of the pictures we took here. We had a blast and would definitely go back. It was hot, but not as hot as Houston. I think we felt the heat more because we walked or rode a bike everywhere we went. So we ended up spending more time then we ever would in the heat. Luckily where we were staying was centrally located, so we could keep stopping in to cool off.
This is the fort that was built on the Dry Tortugas. It never served as a working fort, and at one time they used it for a prison. It was quite a strange site to see this pop up in the middle of the ocean. It was 75 miles west of Key West, so the trip there took over 2 hours. When you were there you were closer to Cuba than you were to the U.S. It was worth it, but next time I would find a different way there, then on a tourist boat. Maybe charter a boat out, because it is a national park, so you can camp.
Tobie and I went to tons of restaurants that ranged from shacks to fine dining. We really put a lot of thought into where we went, because we did not want to just go to any old tourist trap. We thought we would actually lose weight while we were there because we walked, biked or snorkeled everywhere. But as always, the food won:-) This picture of Tobie was taken at BO's Fish Wagon. Wonderful food! I had a cracked conch sandwich. Yum, Yum.
Hemingway's house was only one block from where we stayed, so it was an easy trip to make on foot. Which was lucky because the parking was a nightmare in front and all around the house. It was a beautiful house with equally beautiful gardens. Tons of history. Very interesting life. I really went because I wanted to see the six toed cats. Turns out not every cat there has 6 toes but they all carry the gene. Each cat is allowed only one litter of cats and then is "retired" from the breeding life. The cats were all over, but not as bad as I thought it would be. The cat pictured did have six toes, so if you click on the picture you could probably get a better look. Now I am on the hunt for a 6 toed cat, so if anyone knows of one, let me know!
The place that we stayed in Key West was perfectly placed. We were one block off of Duval Street (the main drag) and 7 to 8 blocks in each direction to most attractions that we were interested in. The walk to the southern most point was just that, 7 or 8 blocks.
So the summer has begun and the kids are having fun. A neighbor of my parents brought by a package of water balloons...so we had to all of them. As we would fill them they would get tossed into the pool. It was quite interesting to see all of the balloons floating around in the pool. The top picture is of the boys trying to pose with the balloons. No too easy trying to wrangle the balloons into one area for a picture. The bottom picture is the "after" picture. It took Kyle and me forever to fill 100 balloons, but just about two minutes to kill every one of them in a massive balloon fight!
