The Lawson Family: Our Vacation!

We just got back from our vacation! It was a long drive, but Sanibel Island was BEAUTIFUL!! It was a 14 day trip, with 12 of the days spent on Sanibel. The kids did wonderfully for the drive both ways. I bought a new Tom & Jerry DVD for them to watch for the drive, and it was a huge hit! Lauren even watched some.

The place where we stayed was nice, and was right on the beach. The view of the gulf was awesome. I have never seen so many shells in my life. After a few days though, I realized they were actually tearing the bottoms of my feet! I think Evan collected about 30 lbs of shells (and brought them home in baggies). We found sand dollars (live ones), hermit crabs and a big crab. I have no idea what we are going to do with all the shells. I knew we had a ton, but we just couldn't stop picking them up! We did not see a single jellyfish or anything scary for our entire trip! Dolphins did appear in the mornings very close to shore and were nice to watch while drinking coffee. We had awesome weather for the majority of our stay too, which made it extra-nice.

We ate at a lot of different places while we were there and the food was pretty good. Evan's favorite places were the Blue Giraffe and Cheeburger Cheeburger. We also rented bikes twice, and rode up to the Sanibel Lighthouse. Evan loved the lighthouse! Lauren loved the beach and the pool. We put swimmies on her arms and she did very well. She also had her very own raft to float in. She didn't collect many shells, as she preferred to take them out of the buckets and throw them back onto the beach, but she sure did chase a lot of birds! Evan made lots of friends during our stay. One from California, one from Orlando and one from the UK, Elliot. He and Elliot really hit it off and were inseperable for quite a few days. They swam in the pool together, diving for diving sticks and making up names for their very own jumps into the pool. They also tried out shuffle board and tennis a few times. They have exchanged a few emails since we've been home, and Evan hopes to see him again sometime when his family comes back to the States.

I have MANY photos to go through (over 1000). I will post some over the next week or so, as I make my way through them. Here's a start!

On the drive to Sanibel...