Destin Florida

Well one good reason to live in Mississippi is your right next to some of the most beautiful places on earth!  Brent's boss in trying to entice us to move to Mississippi kept sending pictures of Destin, Florida, so we decided to leave for the weekend and check it out.  It takes between 2-3 hrs to get there from our home.  Actually we live really close to both the Louisiana border and the Alabama border.  Louisiana is 40 miles to the West of us and Alabama is 40 miles to the East of us.  The ocean waters seem to get nice and clear once you pass into Alabama.

Don't you love a nice tripod picture.  My big lens is the only one that works on my camera, but it's worth it because it takes way better pictures than my phone.  It's hard to not look like you just ran a mile to get into the picture though!

This is just a picture I took down the beach!  Hayden said, "I thought the beaches were nice in Mississippi until I came here."  Life, it's all about perspective!

The birds enjoying the beach!  A lady next to us decided she would lay Cheetos all around this guys head (he was buried in the sand) so that the birds would come!  Not such a great idea!  Poop on my towel!  Gross!  She decided not to do that again!

So here are about a million pictures of us on the beach!  I always like to take pictures of us trying to get a family picture.  It reminds me how fun it was to actually get that one picture that everyone is actually looking at the camera.

I know there are sharks in the Florida water, but I have to say the water is so nice it's hard not to get in even if you ate scared of sharks!  I don't know there is something to be said about being able to see the shark about to attack you!

A nice fellow watching us take pictures suggested we try one in the grass and gave us a few pointers on lighting.  I guess he takes pictures for a living.  We must have looked like amateurs.  

So I went a little crazy taking pictures of my fair skinned girl, but don't you always go a little crazy with the youngest?  Plus she was always just right in front of me.  The other kids were off exploring to far for even my zoom lens.

My cute girls!

More Picture taking!

My cute Boys!!!

Hayden was a little to brave for me!  He was out looking for  creatures to catch!

Kelton found a 20 dollar bill and Hayden found a 5 dollar bill out in the ocean while they were searching for animal life!

Hayden  managed to catch a jelly fish!

Jelly fish up close!

Kara way out in the ocean!  Come back!!!!

Someone built a huge Sponge Bob!  The kids thought it was really cool.  Kelton did not want anyone to ruin it.  After about an hour a crazy family with bratty kids came and sat behind us.  The first thing their 3 children did was go and jump on and destroy Sponge Bob.  I know it is mean for me to call them bratty, but seriously if you would have seen them you would have said bratty too.  The parents just watched.  I'm actually surprised they did not join in.  

Kelton was hard at work building his own creation!

All finished A BIG SMILEY FACE!  That's my Kelton!  Kara pitched in too!

These kids love water!  Everyone was amazed by Halle's swimming.  I think she was a dolphin before she came to earth( :

We then went to this little place called Fudpuckers!  I should have gotten a good picture of the outside!  They have Alligators under the restaurant!  They do free shows, have a playground, music, and the restaurant is really cool looking.  They serve lots of local food like hush puppies (fried corn bread), crab balls, gator tail al la fud, calamari, fried dill pickles, basically anything fried and then just some crazy name for it.  For example down here they call snow cones, SNOW BALLS!  There are lots of Snow Ball shops around it is more like shaved ice we had in Idaho.  It was really fun and the kids loved learning about Alligators.

The outdoor mall we stopped at really quickly!

These pictures are not the greatest and the ones of the kids holding the Alligators came out sideways.  I tried and tried to flip them, but alas I gave up!  I 'm not very good with electronic devices.

I am less afraid of Alligators now.  Crocodiles are the animal to be afraid of and they do not have Crocodiles here.  They are only found in the most Southern part of Florida and then only in other countries.  Alligators are smaller and would not just attack you unless you were to close to their nest.  On the other hand Crocodiles do actually hunt people!  When crocodiles close their mouths you can see both their upper and lower teeth.  When an Alligator closes its mouth you can only see their bottom teeth.  Just a little Alligator trivia!

So here are my sideways kids!

Hayden loves adventure and new things!  This was his favorite part of the trip!  It was lots of fun!  Of course I kept thinking how much fun all the cousins would have together on the beach and how much fun I would have taking pictures of them.  I love taking pictures on the beach because it is just so beautiful.  I do love seeing all the beautiful things around the world.  I think that would be a fun job.  Taking pictures of all the beautiful creations around the world.  Every time I see something beautiful I wish I had my Camera with me. I promised not to talk about school stuff on our little trip to Florida!  We were trying not to think about school at all( :

Small school update!  I talked again with the principle and vice principle.  They talked with Kara's teachers and Kara said her homeroom teacher has stopped yelling.  I also printed off some statistics and information on why yelling is not an effective way of disciplining.  I'll have to send them to everyone.  I gave these to the school too.  The progress is slow, but I do believe there is progress.  I've met a few more people that feel as I do and encouraged two more ladies to attend lunch.  For the first time ever they are letting parent volunteers into the school (this was not because of me).