St. George Island

My grandparents love us very much. As a result, they have been taking our whole family to the beach for the past 15 some odd years! I still can't believe it's been that long. Anyways, it's quite the operation to find a suitable house for 10 people & actually get us all down there! For the past several years, my brother's friend Ben has joined us, which is good since Ben's the only grandson among granddaughters! (Yes, they're both named Ben.) We've been going to St. George Island off the coast of Florida near Apalachicola and we love it. We're usually too busy relaxing to take tons of pictures, but here's a few to give you an idea!

The picturesque view from the dining room. Sitting at the table looking out this seemed, to me, to be the epitome of tranquility & bliss. It was hard to get the picture to do it justice...




Sea turtles nest here each summer. While we're quite familiar with the "light out for sea turtles" mantra, this was the first year we'd actually seen fresh tracks & nests. Very exciting!




Family swim time! What you can't see are the mega water guns that Ben & Ben are hiding underwater. Claire's helpfully pointing out a potential beach-walking target for their Stealth Attack. Sadly, none of us actually had the guts to shoot at unsuspecting strangers. Though Mama & Nancy fell victim a few times! Notice the distance they've placed between themselves & the rowdy childrens.


Ma being positively perplexed by the remote control. In her defense, the batteries died by the end of the week so it's entirely possible that it was not behaving properly at this moment in time!




Beautiful & delicious roasted vegetables courtesy of Emi. We like to take pictures of food in our family...especially when it's so colorful!





Cousin kitchen loafing. Notice how Mama & Nancy are in constant motion while we're on standby to help out as necessary. The appropriate soundtrack to this picture is Fox News making a valiant effort to overpower our chatting. I know open kitchens are all the rage, but there are serious acoustic issues with such a floor plan! On another note, Claire's holding a paper towel in preparation for...

...this! Apparently, she was trying to get it over her head without breaking to make a sort of collar. She almost made it, too!





Claire contemplating what went wrong with the paper towels. Or wondering why they won't release season 3 of Pete & Pete on DVD. Both very much worth pondering. She turned 18 a couple weeks ago...Happy Birthday, Claire!



Brother Ben totally passed out from a long day of beach activities. Isn't the sunglasses tan hot? ;-) Hey, it's inevitable, we know.





Fuqua was also quite sleepy. Too sleepy in fact to put on pants! Thankfully, neither he nor my brother read my blog, so my life is in no immediate danger!






Well, that's all folks! As we've gotten older, the future of the family beach trip has become more & more uncertain. We have reservations for next summer though, so it seems we'll go at least one more year. Depending on when I decide to take the boards, I may or may not be joining them. We'll see. Cross your fingers!