"A" Cubed

Tuesday, August 4

Cape San Blas, Florida: Part IV

Theme IV: Faces

It was extremely hard to narrow these faces down to just a few. What was funny is that I had to go searching for face pictures of my own child, but I had so many of Kira that I had to pick and choose! Hmmmm...so you think I love my new niece! Absolutely!

And so here I present you the many faces of Kira Jane:
As some sweet form of a Star Wars character:

Doing one of the things she does best: suck on those little fingers! I see teeth in the near future!

Watching her Uncle Paul!

Playing on the floor

Declan was a great sport and let me take some fun pictures of him too. His little smile is so contagious.

This was his "grrrrrrrr" face...

And he sure loved his yummy popsicle

And then there was my poor, under photographed child! Totally kidding! My favorite pictures of her are with her Daddy! But here are some of her faces from the week.

Such concentration, but I just couldn't resist those eye lashes!

Studying how to make sure she didn't get put down on the sand!

Birds?

Grinning in her Daddy's arms.

And with all the fun you've now witnessed, believe it or not...we did sleep some. But our little family didn't sleep much because our precious child refused to take naps in her pack-n-play, much preferred to sleep with (or on) us, and decided playtime was at 3am. Seriously people! She's slept 12+ hours each night since we got home (in HER bed!). Whew!

I miss the fall-asleep-anywhere age...maybe just a little.

But Addie loved sleeping on her Daddy, especially for naps!

One more post tomorrow...then it's on to Beach Beauties: Seas, Sunsets, and Flowers on my other blog!

Monday, August 3

Cape San Blas, Florida: Part III

The second theme: food and night time fun!

Because we live to eat instead of eat to live! Right?

You can't go to the beach without eating seafood, that is, unless you hate it or it hates you!

But this has never been my idea of seafood.

{oysters} I just don't get how or why people want to eat a rubbery mass (that looks an awful lot like gray snot), soaked in sea water, on a saltine cracker! RAW! Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's delicious. I know there are some sushi and raw seafood lovers out there. Not me! Ewwww!

Fortunately we had some excellent ~~fishermen~~ scallopers who were willing to rise early, rev up the boat, and retrieve a ~~few~~ at least 200 scallops for our consumption!

A 16 month old in tow would not have been a pretty combination, so we just played on the beach. However, I did get into cleaning them.

Really. I did. I had no idea those yummy, chewy scallops started out here!

Or that it could take SO long to clean them!

Albert's shirt should have deterred the bugs from biting us...

Unfortunately, the yellow flies refused to BUZZ OFF; and the three of us got bitten several times. However, I was the only one who reacted. I guess 11 bites, 7 of which were on my right foot, would cause most people to itch, swell, and otherwise be miserable for several days. Although I'm sure I've been stung before, I don't recall those as being painful for days; but I have been bitten by my fair share of mosquitoes, fleas, and other flies (at camp). These were by far the worst fly bites I've ever encountered! My ankle is still black and blue! Ouch!

I digress again! Back to the food theme...

We even dared to all go out to dinner one night...

(check out Addie's face!)

The kids had a very different idea of food:

Cheetos...

(be impressed: Paul took this picture on manual settings after a quick tutorial!)

milk...

and watermelon in a martini glass of course!

And after a fun day at the beach, good dinner, and yummy desserts, we all put our heads together for a game of:

They won...

We didn't.

But it doesn't matter, because have I mentioned it was beautiful!??!?

Sunday, August 2

Cape San Blas, Florida: Part II

In case you missed Part 1, you can click here. And in case you missed Parts 1-6 on my photography blog, you can find them here!

I've come to the realization that I cannot just pick one picture (or two or three, for that matter). It's an impossibility. So I spend who knows how long late at night ~~thumbing~~ clicking through pictures using some ineffective means of sorting them only to find I've forgotten it the next day!

So in Part II, I should probably formally introduce these posts. I have no idea how many there will be. Not a clue. I do know that in a mere 7 days, I took roughly 1250 pictures. Did you catch that...? 1,250! That's approximately 178 pictures a day. In a 12 hour day, that's almost 15 pictures every hour. That's almost 3 pictures every 10 minutes. And I can assure you that I missed many wonderful shots! I definitely hit a record when I took pictures of my precious niece and her mom and dad (Paul's brother) on the beach: 94 pictures in 10 minutes. That's a picture every 6 seconds! Whew!

And that was a tangent if I've ever been on one!

Where were we? Oh, our trip! Paul, Addie, and I loaded the car (and the new trailer hitch cargo carrier that sticks out behind the car complete with a ginormous weather-proof bag) and headed to Cape San Blas, Florida. Where's that, you ask? Near Port St. Joe! What, you don't know where that is either? How about 25 miles from Apalachicola and about 55 miles away from Panama City. Generally know where we were now...? Good!

Paul's mom and her husband Albert rented a beautiful house on the beach! We met his brother Jay, his wife Millie, their daughter Kira as well as Albert's children and their families there. The forecast. Rain all week! The reality: about 5 storms, 3 of which were at night, 2 of which lasted less than 30 minutes! Can't beat that! It was beautiful!

See...?

I'll have many more sunset pictures on my other blog soon! As soon as I can narrow them down to 5 or 10 or maybe 20 shots!

Anyway. I figure each of these posts should have some sort of theme.

Since we were at the beach...the 1st theme is:

Beach Fun!!!

Even if it involves Addie sitting in a baby pool on the beach because she hates the sand!

And why she insisted on licking the salt water off her fingers, we'll never know!

But Addie sure did look cool in her sunglasses (for the 2.5 seconds that she wore them)!

However, the seagulls were not afraid of the sand. They loved Addie's water logged Ritz crackers we threw out of the baby pool. We could almost hear them saying, "Mine! Mine!" (any guesses on that movie quote?)

But as long as Addie was in someone's lap, she was completely content to sit in the sand. She didnt mind the sand being on her...as long as she couldn't see it!