Wish you were here!

We are in Sanibel Island, Florida this week and it's been beautiful. I'm not sure, but I think we might have picked the hottest week to head to south Florida. Blair is working in the area, so he's not really on vacation, but I am! Kind of.


The pool is right out our back door and the beach is just a few short steps away. Who could ask for anything more? A bar close by, you say? Well, they have one right there at the pool! It's all very laid back and cool.



The expression on this womans face cracks me up. That's Rena jumping in, sans thloatie.



Despite the fact that we have access to a pool 7 days a week in Georgia, that's where my girls would rather spend their time. So, we've been in the pool everyday! Rena has learned to swim all by herself! I'm both petrified and excited all at the same time. She's quite proud of herself and I have to give her the freedom to test herself without turning back and relying on the floatie...or thloatie, as it's refered to in our household.





Rachel has been dubbed 'Rachel the Brave' this week. She is driving me absolutely CRAZY and I spend half the day yelling at her, despite all of my behavior management knowledge. However, her feisty little personality really pays off for her. At the pool, they had a log-rolling contest. Rena tried it first, and then Rachel decided to give it a try. You know what I'm talking about? You stand on a log, in this case a styrofoam blue 'log' and try not to fall off. Well, Rachel probably didn't last 2 seconds, but the whole pool cheered for her! They were all shouting "yea, Rachel". I'm not kidding. Earlier on the quest for bravery was the waterslide. Rena also had tackled this first and I finally talked Rachel and Riley into going down. They both ended up loving it.





Riley has turned into a scaredy cat this week. Poor thing. We were coming home from dinner one night and one of those lovely Japanese beetles landed on her. If 2 year olds regularly had heart attacks, Riley would have been on her way to meet her maker. Thank God he made her with a strong heart, if not a brave spirit! She completely freaked out and cried the rest of the way home. Now, don't get me wrong, I hate the little boogers too, but they are really nothing to freak out about. They do tend to get stuck in some odd places, but at least they seem to have a sense of direction, unlike those damn June bugs that bounce off your head in the summer. Can't wait til Riley sees one of those!





Then there are the ants. To my children, all ants are fire ants and evidently they have gone from being prey to predator. I've tried to tell my girls that the ants can't catch them, but they are having none of it. At least Rena has reason to fear ants. When she was 2, maybe 3, she was bitten by about 100 of the things at one time. Welcome to Georgia. So OF COURSE, she's scared of them. Riley might have been bitten by one at some point, but really one or two is no big deal. Rachel the Brave will step in to save her sisters from anything with an exoskeleton. One swift stomp of the foot, and that is that!

The next thing that has Riley freaked out are the holes in the walkway. I don't think this is a Steven King kind of fear. The fact is we went out to an old beach house and the boardwalk to it wasn't in the best shape. I'm really not sure how, but one of the boards came up and landed on Riley's foot, scaring her to death. Today, we were walking across another boardwalk when she noticed the holes. You know, the space between the board. That gave her yet another thing to fret about!

It is fun to watch her overcome her fears though. She did manage to overcome her fears of the waterslide. I really wish I had gotten it on video. When she started moving at the top, there were serious signs of fear on her face. Once she hit the water, it was all good and she had the biggest smile! It was great!

So only a few more short hours until we hit the road again. I'm going to miss it here. I NEED to be by the beach.