Florida Fun

Last Friday we hit the road for a family road trip to Port St. Joe, Florida. We rented a house right on the beach with Chris, Chrissy, the girls and Patton, J, Ray and Ray's sister Ali, and our cousins came from Michigan with their two boys, Chase and Carter.

We decided to drive to Brad's grandparent's house in East Texas and stay the night Friday to shave off 2 hours driving to Pensacola on Saturday.
Here is the Jeep loaded to the ultimate capacity! Please get comfortable because this might be my longest post ever!

Grandpa Instine & Eli Rylee loves their dog Suzzie! She thinks any dog smaller than Ruger is a puppy. Rylee with Aunt Carole
Rylee and Grandma Instine Brad and Rylee being naughty and jumping on the bed at the hotel Saturday in Pensacola.
Rylee enjoying her sticker book.....
We made it!
The house we stayed in
Ry's first look at a real beach!

The water was not the beautiful blue I remember Destin being, but more like lake water. We could walk out less than 10 feet, only about waist high on the adults, and there was a huge sandbar. It was pretty neat and perfect for the kids!

The first day we had to carry Ry out to the sandbar and as soon as we would try and set her down she would scream. We were pretty worried that she wouldn't play in the water the entire week. We finally got out of her what she was scared of and she said, "the crabs are going to get my toes." Luckily, she soon got over it and was the little fishy we know her to be. Ry collecting seashells, they were everywhere!

Eli went to town on the watermelon!
Brad was quite the little hunter on the trip! Here he caught a (dead) catfish on a stick, but also found two crabs, one of which only had one eye. Rylee kept saying, "the crab only has one eye, and he can't see, and he's angry!" He also found a huge seashell for each of the kids to bring home (7 total) and 5 hermit crabs!
2 of the hermit crabs he found

Hanging out on the deck
Chase was so sweet with Eli! He loved picking him up, playing and talking to him!
I LOVE this picture of Patton and Eli! They enjoyed eating by one another all week!
The big kids doing I'm not sure what.

I had to get some workouts in where I could and Patton was glad to help.
I call these Patton curls ;)
The Mazel glasses are a joke from Late Night with Andy Cohen and Ray got all the girls a pair for the beach. Chase helped get Patton all dressed up.

The girls hanging out
J cooked bacon for about an hour straight one morning. The kids would come up one by one asking for more, so he kept cooking. Such a great Uncle and cousin!
One day we hit the road, packed up snacks and all to head to another beach and rent jet skis. The weather was not cooperating, so we drove to Panama city and ate lunch at Bayou Joe's. It was a little restaurant right in the middle of a marina. We saw dolphins and Ry fed fish right from her seat, it was pretty cool!

Back at the beach, Berk and Ry enjoyed making sand angels!
Carter, Ry and E taking a break from the beach.

Poor Ry was staying up late, getting up early and taking no nap. It finally caught up with her!

Randy playing a game of catch and throw with Patton.
Mazel! Me, Chrissy, Ali, Jaimi and Rachel.

The boys: J, Chris, Randy & Brad
Randy has a case of OCD when it comes to floors! Thank goodness because floors are my least favorite! I swept every day (and only b/c Eli was crawling all over them), we pretty much had to take turns. We had to sweep 3-4 times a day from all the sand being tracked in, food from the babies and kids, you can only imagine with 4 families in one house.

Bubba enjoying playing in the sand, he even ate some a few times! He enjoyed the water, but if you tried to get him to stand up in it, he would just pull his feet up so he didn't have to touch!

Ry and I ready to hit the beach!

Ry, Berk & Carter playing in the sand.

E headed to some waves on the boogie board.

J and Randy playing batchi ball on the beach.
Ry enjoying some watermelon.

Getting some rays, LOVE this!

More watermelon

Ry and Daddy playing in the waves.
These next 3 pictures are my favorite! I was trying to get a picture of my cousin Randy and his family.

It's hard to see, but if you look out as far as you can see the water there is a spec of light blue. That is my brother on a tube searching for another sandbar farther out, he didn't find one. Not sure who talked him into doing that! I wouldn't have done it, especially by myself! I like to stay nice and close to the beach!
I figured I was taking all these pictures of everyone else, why not get a pic of my little koala on my hip!

Chase, Ray & Elliott

Chrissy & Patton fianlly joined us after a nice long nap!
The girls!
Eli's first corn on the cob, he's a fan!

Silly boy with a diaper on his head!

Carter & Patton
The kids playing water pong!
Jaimi and I

We were extremely lucky that our kids sleep through the loud shananigans of the adults at night! Several of the nights we took it down to the beach. I have never seen so many stars in my life, it was beautiful! I only wish we could have gotten a good picture of them!

Me, Randy & Ali

J, Ray, Chrissy & Jaimi

Our awesome pyramid! There were 20 hilarious pictures before we finally got to this point, but I won't bore you with those.
Maybe just one ;)

Randy, J & Jaimi.....nice try!

Look at that, no hands!
J and Ray
There he is again.....
Patton has some mad domino skills!

The weather was crazy the last couple of days. This was what it looked like facing the house.....

And facing the beach!

Brad & J using the kids shovels to dig a hole for the fire for smores!

Headed down for smores!
Berk stayed in her jammies the entire day, that's a true vacation right there!

Chase & Carter, they are so stinking cute and awesome little boys!

Enjoying her smore!

Smore kiss

Stinker.....

More hermit crabs!

We are so sad our vacation had to come to an end! We had such a blast and can't wait to do it again! We LOVE you all!