Saturday, July 25, 2009

Island in the Sun

There's one thing I know for sure: It's a mighty task to come back to reality after spending a sun-filled week at the beach.


That being said (and explaining why it took me so long to post these pictures...) we had a fabulous beach vacation!! The week felt so long, and I soaked up every second of it. We didn't do much besides sun ourselves (spf 30 of course!), float lazily in the ocean, float laziliy in the pool, and eat large quantities of food on the half hour.


Tony and I went with my family, which included my parents, my sis Courtney and her boyfriend Byron, as well as Grammy (!). My other sis Caitlin was unable to come due to a silly final, but as you will see, she was there in spirit.


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As I mentioned before, we had never been to Florida for the family vacay...always N.C. I think I can confidently say the parents have been convinced that the benefits of being on the Gulf are totally worth it!! We didn't get pummelled by waves, or have to trek 10 miles back to the house through the dunes. Everyone got to relax and just hang out the way they wanted to. Even Grammy got in some floating action on her tube!


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The best part of the little house we rented was the backyard pool. It was shallow and the perfect size for hanging out and drinking cold beverages! The waterfall made it seem even fancier.


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We were lucky to have picked just the right part of the beach to stay where there weren't too many people -- there's only but so many people who should see me in a bathing suit before the earth starts spinning backwards... so this was good.


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Caitlin's scary heads got to enjoy our trip too!


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Courtney's 21st birthday happened while we were there, so of course I made them take 100 pictures!


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What I loved the most was the fact that I got a full week of quality time to spend with my family. Every time we go up to Knoxville for a weekend, there is never ever enough time to really spend quality time with any one person. A family vacation will remedy that quickly!


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We saw so much animal life on this trip too!! Gorgeous birds, crabs, turtles, rays, shell animals, dolphins, manatees, lots of fish, and who knows what else!


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We rented a pontoon boat one day and cruised around the harbors and the Bay (we didn't venture into the ocean since that seems a little scary, although Tampa Bay is huuuuge and kinda scary too in a relatively small boat!). Amazingly, if you didn't follow the channel exactly, the water was only a few feet deep, and the bottom was covered with thick sea grass teeming with life. We could look over the side of the boat as we were moving and see everything going on down there. We even anchored in the middle of the water at one point and got out where it was sandy, and there were millions of barnacley crabs, beautiful conch-type shells that were all inhabited (much to our shell-collecting dismay), live sand dollars, anenmoes, huge fish... so much life that you had to wear shoes in the water or you were sure to step on something sharp or spiney or pinchery.


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And um... we may or may not have run aground once... but we did see lots of dolphins playing out in the deep part of the Bay!


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...beach


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My newly-legal sister even taught my parents how to play beer pong


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Grammy even got in on the action!! (I mean, Grammy is pretty much awesome - who can honestly say they have played beer pong with their grandmother....??)
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It's pretty clear we had a great time - we all ate, drank, and got a little crispy - and I can't wait to do it again next year!


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