Home again, Home again, jiggity jog.....

Well, we just made it home from our WONDERFUL, FANTASTIC, and EXCITING beach trip!

I am so sad to be back to the "real" world.

Back to the endless telephone calls, laundry, dishes, house cleaning, work....

Work, UGH.....I don't even want to think about that tomorrow.

But I am glad to be here, in my house, my bed, and my mess again.

I am sure I will sleep great tonight....In my KING-SIZED bed, after sleeping in a full for the past several days! LOL!

I have hundreds of pictures to go through before I can do a "vacation" post, but I did want want to post about the MOST exciting thing that happened on our trip.

Last night, we all decided to spend the evening walking up and down the beach, just enjoying the sights and sounds of our last night in Florida. When we about ready to return to the room, we noticed some commotion around the blocked-off sea turtle nest area right in front of our condo. We ran up there and found out that the eggs were hatching!

Within minutes, over 100 itty-bitty sea turtles began crawling out their nest in the sand, and then started running for the beach.

It was INCREDIBLE!

Those little suckers were EVERYWHERE!

Jameson and I followed the fastest turtle and cheered him on until he made it to the ocean. We cheered and clapped and yelled when he made his one last final dive! He was WAAY out in front of the rest of the pack....we couldn't believe how fast they were!

Unfortunately, the lights on the surrounding condos confused many of the turtles, and they started turning and running towards those lights which were AWAY from the ocean. (Many communities where sea turtles are known to have laid eggs have a "Lights out" policy in place during "hatching" time, but not in this particular area.) Marty followed one little guy over halfway to the water, and then he turned around and headed back towards the condo lights. No matter what he did, the turtle just wouldn't turn back around.

The Sea Turtle Rescue people quickly made it there, and assisted MANY of the turtles and "helped" them into the right direction, including Marty's.

The kids were just in AWE of what they saw and were so excited!

The adults were a little excited about the whole thing too! LOL!

We weren't allowed to take pictures with a flash, so the quality is HORRIBLE, but at least we have one little reminder of our adventure!

The view of the nest from our room.

The hole in the nest right before they started coming out. Chelsea took this before we were told that we couldn't use flash photography.

Here's Marty's little lost turtle. Fortunately, the rescue team saved him.



I don't think the kids really realized how big of deal this was. We kept telling them that it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. They just saw it as "really cool". Either way, it is something that none of us will ever forget!

Thank you Connie and Kyle for inviting us on this FANTASTIC TRIP!

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