Skiing at Labrador Mountain

The week before we left for Sanibel Jeff took the boys to Labrador Mountain, which has much better teaching and facilities for little guys learning to ski. Jeff was very happy to see the boys have a nice long ski run on their own.

One of our last days in Sanibel we met up with an instructor from the Sanibel Sea School for a lesson in sainting (Sp?), which is running a net through the water at a shallow depth to see what you can find. We also did some throwing of a cast net, which was interesting and challenging but didn't net much in the way of fish. But the sainting was cool. So you run the net through the water, covering from the surface all the way to the bottom, and then you hammock the net and put it up on the sand to see what you've got. We had the chance to see and handle lots of things--hermit crabs, dwarf sea horses, jellies, sea snakes, puffers, and lots of other kinds of fish. We also found lots of conches and got to handle them and see all their parts.

Bubble blowing on the tennis court

Andy Parkes joined us for a bike and snacks at the farmers' market.

Theo, down 2 pounds because of the flu, fit perfectly in Reed's swim shirt.

Beckett in his swim get up.

Reed continuing his eat everything philosophy while in Florida.

Everyone adapted pretty well to the time change but Reed was... confused.

Sanibel pool photos

When the big boys were Reed's age we spent a lot of time in Sanibel camped around an inflatable pool watching them play. We didn't spend too much time this trip because we spent so much time in the big pool, but we still had fun filling up the water cannons from Reed's pool and shooting things (mostly) out of the pool

Though Reed was fascinated with the streams of water coming out of the cannons. And Beckett loved having his chance to shoot Reed with a gun being condoned by Grandpa Stu.

Daddy and Theo on the weehoo or we-go or whatever the thing is.

Beck and I had a nice adventure one afternoon to the donut store and then to a small tortoise habitat nature reserve.

This is what I believe is an Eastern Indigo Snake, which is rarely seen. I was totally excited to see it and talk about it with Beck, who was UNIMPRESSED TO THE MAX. He started talking about how in a book he has, there's a snake that is much longer and much larger in diameter, and it has a mouth much bigger to eat much bigger prey. Man, there's a freakin live snake right in front of us, and you don't care at all.

Walking the tortoise trail.

Sanibel beach photos

Our first day in Sanibel, we walked to the beach and the boys had a blast jumping in the water and wading in up to their waists (which made Grandma Joanie and Grandpa Stu worried). They got completely soaked with COLD water but had a blast.

Reed LOVES the beach. Specifically, he likes how everything on the shell-strewn beach looks like a choking hazard/pinchable piece of food. I spent five or ten minutes slapping every piece of seaweed, broken shell, and other beach detritus out of his hands before they made it to his mouth. Then we put him in the beach wagon, and he amused himself with the umbrella for 30-40 minutes.

Beckett just loves his shovel. He made lots and lots of holes on the beach.