Family Vacation

This past week my whole family and I went to Alligator Point Florida for a family vacation. We haven't been on a family vacation since I was around 8 years old. We got a beach house right on the beach!! It was fantastic!!! 17 people and 2 dogs under one roof!!! What a household!! We left on June 25th and got back July 2nd! We did everything from swimming, flying a kite, playing in the sand, shopping, went to the redneck aquarium (which the kids absolutely loved), and much more!!! I believe Fred and Mark had a blast flying their kites. It ended up being more of a battle and trying to knock each other's kite down... they had the trick kites with two handles and Fred called his kite the angel of death because his kite was an angel fish and about 6ft big... on the other hand, Mark's was about 3 foot long and just blue.. lol Needless to say Fred broke Marks kite over and over, but Mark was a trooper and kept fixing it and taking it back into the air. He had knots all throughout his string trying to keep it together. A funny story about Marks kite, he was out there without Fred around and got his kite up all the way with no extra string. He was quite proud of himself. He stuck the end of his kite into the sand and stood there in awe. A wave came up and knocked his handle out of the sand and his kite went flying! Next thing you see is Mark chasing his kite across the beach. I wasn't out to see this but my mom was. When I came out with my camera to get some pictures of the kite flyers, Mark was no where to be found. My brother pointed towards the house and I saw the kite, but did not see Mark anywhere. Finally I noticed a tree swaying back and forth. Mark was on top of this pine tree and I'm surprised it was holding him! He was trying to save his kite. Needless to say he lost about 2 ft of string and it was in a huge knot! Julie, Mark, and I finally worked hard and got his kite untangled. The next day he got it back up into the air and the string broke and the kite went sailing away again... Needless to say, Mark didn't go chasing after that one. hahaa We went to this aquarium. I call it the redneck aquarium because when you pull up all you see is a trailer. hahaa there were different buildings behind the trailer, it was great for the kids though because alot of the animals were hands on and they got to hold them and get up close and personal with the fishies. Greg was sweating so bad from running from tank to tank.. It was cute. We were in and our within 2 hours... It was a great thing to do on a rainy day. Sadly, the last 2 days we were there it was raining... So we didn't get to get a family picture on the beach like we wanted to but hopefully this will be an annual thing and we will do it again next year. My dad went fishing about every morning and night. Thanks goodness for Bob Crockett (Jenny's Dad) for bringing his fishing poles. My dad caught a stingray the first morning and a big trout that we ended up eating for dinner one night! I knew he enjoyed that greatly!!

Mark and I were able to bring our dogs Daisy and Maverick to the beach house! They were so tired by the end of each day! Daisy took on the waves at the beach like a baywatch dog jumping the waves and all! Maverick liked chasing the crabs... I'm surprised he didn't hurt himself haha.

Here are a few pictures from our trip! Look how cute Mark and Fred are with their kites!!