Mexico Beach Vacation

I just got back from an amazing 8 night camping trip to Mexico Beach, Florida.  I was just my Mom, my sister and her kids, plus my kids and me.  It was really a shame that the men had to stay behind and work.  Apart from the yellow flies (which made me vow never to return to Mexico Beach again, although I'm sure I'll forget about my promise to myself next year) the trip was marvelous.

One of the best days we had was spent at Crooked Island.  You wouldn't believe the wildlife I saw that day.  I saw a sea turtle in the ocean!  And my nephew saw it too, so I know I'm not crazy.  We swam with stingrays - one with at least a two foot wingspan.  Luckily, they were scared away easily.  But perhaps the best find of all was a shrimp!  I don't know how, but my boy caught a shrimp!  It blends well, but you can see it in the bucket, below.



Shrimp in the bucket



To get out to the beach, you have to walk over a long boardwalk, then it's a pretty good ways down to the beach.  Then we chose to walk even farther down to a point where there was a sand bar.  The water was clear and you could walk 30 feet out and the water still not hit your waist.  There's not many people on Crooked Island anyway, but that day, it was like we were on our own private beach. 

My shrimp catching boy also dug up a fist sized crab that day.  My Mom came upon a whole bed of sand dollars.  Everywhere you stepped you pick up a sand dollar with your toes.  Because of the depth of water, only my older three boys went diving for those. 

We stayed at Crooked Island and played until dark, and saw an amazing sunset.

Trying to catch some fish



Clear water all the way out.



No one around but us!



Looking through the sand dollars


We saw another beautiful sunset on our last night at the beach while the kids were catching crabs.

While J was showing me one of the crabs he caught, it ended up crawling onto his belly and down his shorts!  The look on his face and the scream that came out of his mouth was one of the funniest things I've experienced in awhile.

I guess that's what he gets for wearing Velcro shorts that wouldn't stay closed!

Kissing a crab

It was such a fun trip, but 8 days away from my man was almost too long.  We get to go back to the beach with him next week .... somewhere I've never been before and I. Cannot. Wait.