prize snook

This is Josh's crazy catch from his day of fishing solo, when I was sick. It was the biggest snook he has ever caught....and he's done his fair share of ocean fishing. 37 inches, 16 pounds. Awesome.

lulu and kates

baby buns

here fishy, fishy.

Josh took me fishing this week, and this redfish was the first fish I've ever caught on the ocean before. It was an 8 pound, 28 inch redfish...quite a catch. I had no idea how good it was, but Josh and our guide were both kind of freaking out. I was so proud!



Then, Josh and I "doubled" on our next catch. Two redfish...mine was 7 1/2 pounds and his was 11 pounds. Our guide told me that I was definitely good luck, because stuff like this rarely happens.



Check out that 11-pounder!!



My first snook...kind of small, but my first, nonetheless.



We had lunch on Cabbage Key, a small island next to Useppa. The dining room is covered with dollar bills. Pretty fascinating.

boca grande

Other than a few sick days on our vacation, everything has been really wonderful. It has been so good to be away from familiarity and responsibility. It will make going home that much sweeter. Once I was feeling better, we were able to take another trip away from Useppa and we went over to Boca Grande for the day. We met Archie and Debbie there and spent a good amount of time just hanging out enjoying the beach. Boca Grande is awesome.

katie!

On the way back to Useppa, we picked up our friend Katie. She is making our life a lot easier here. We're so glad that she wanted to come with us on another vacation since last year she got some food poisoning on our trip to Mexico and landed in the hospital for a couple days. No fun. She just graduated from high school and is off to Covenant College in a few weeks and we're really going to miss her. It's hard to lose a good baby-sitter. Here we are greeting her at the airport....just kidding. It's from her graduation at the end of May.

sweet

scooting underneath the couch

bubble face

more generations

Debbie with her mom, Josh, and the girls.

pop and b's house

We continued on to San Antonio, the small town in central Florida where Debbie grew up. She and Archie bought a second home there about a year ago, and we stayed with them so that we could see Josh's grandma and introduce her to Lucy. It was a very peaceful and relaxing evening.



This is downtown San Ann.


Archie and Debbie's chippendale fence that they made. Incredible.


I was struck by how much this picture of Debbie as a young girl has traces of Huntleigh in it. (She's the one on the left.)

generations

Huntleigh was completely beside herself by this point, but you know what? The picture will always be worth it. She fell asleep about 3 minutes after we got in the car.

grandmas

Lucy with my dad's mom and his grandma, my great-grandma. So cool.

the cracker barrel wait-out

We took a little overnight trip off the island to go and see our grandmothers. It was important to us that Lucy meet all of them....I have a grandma as well as a great-grandma on my paternal side and Josh has a grandma on his maternal side. Here are my kiddos as we waited at Cracker Barrel for my grandmothers' arrival. We were there for quite some time before they arrived and so we resorted to some fun with food. Hunts got a kick out of the onion rings, to say the least.

learning about mangroves

lounging like the queen

laughing

banyan tree

trust me. this picture was not as easy as it looks.

scissor bill

sunset with yia yia

worn out

"fwimming"

here's what I really think, grandpa.

checkmate.

we've been feeding the turtles

...and we almost got it all the way back to Banyan Cottage.

we made it!

Well, we're in Useppa. It's this small island in the Gulf coast of Florida and there is nothing to do here. Nothing at all. Except be lazy, which is a good thing, because I think we've spent the last six months being productive in some sense or another. And for Josh, well, he's been productive for the past two years. Now we're done with the MBA and both of our children are in regular patterns of sleep...both of those things are HUGE. If you haven't lived through either of those things, just wait. You'll be shaking your head right along with me someday. Our friend Sharon left at 7 on Tuesday night and we were on a plane to Florida at 7 the next morning. Here are my happy babes getting onto the boat to take us to Useppa. Yea!

swim babes

Mya


Hunts in Sharon's hat


Lulu in Sharon's other hat. Very cute.