Spring Break-The Keys Day 2

When the kids woke up (way too early) we headed out for Marathon Key to check out Sombrero Beach. It was beautiful. Sunshine. Crystal clear water. Beautiful white sand. We just soaked up that entire day. 

I drove over the ocean!!!!

A lot of the drive you are a tiny speck of road in-between huge ocean on both sides of you. It's pretty amazing. The GPS would show our little car surrounded by water, which I thought was so funny.

Look at that bridge we drove over! 

We are pretty fast at getting water-ready around these parts. But sunscreen? It took us thirty minutes every morning just to apply sunscreen to everyone! Then we would repeat in an hour or so. Luckily, only Sterling burned a little bit on the back of his calves and that was on the next day. So I guess all that time was well spent!

Just look at that water! SO CLEAR!  

Ruth was in heaven.

When we very first got there, a DOLPHIN was swimming RIGHT by the buoy in front of us!!! IT WAS INCREDIBLE! Unluckily, I thought it would swim right away so I didn't run for my camera. Then it kept swimming along the buoys away from us. I did eventually get my camera, but even more unluckily, when I was scrolling through pictures I thought they were just random photos with a random boy in them, so I deleted them. Ruff. But we saw a DOLPHIN!!!!!!!!

She really liked digging holes and Will really liked carrying water to fill them up. It was a great system.

She was a mermaid.

That umbrella behind us was our best pre-Florida purchase. Definitely need a break from the sun throughout the day and it is perfect. 

Baby toes in the sand. Nothing sweeter.

The beautiful beach. So I found out that every single beach on this side of Florida gets that seaweed washed up and that you have to go to the Gulf side of Florida to get pure sand. But this seaweed was a tiny little patch and the water was so beautiful I didn't even notice it. 

 A really nice lady took a family picture for us. Yay!

Oh I just LOVE that girl! The water felt a little chilly when you were all nice and warm and cozy on the sand, but she was ALWAYS up for a swim and jumped right in!

Pretty Molly.

They are pretty perfect. So happy they are mine.

A whole big ocean!

These two are the greatest! We had so many people ask if they were twins. I think it was just the matching hats and floaties.

We made a massive sand castle. This sand was seriously the GREATEST to play in. The kids sat there for HOURS.

The sun is too much.

On top of having beautiful water, white beaches, and perfect weather, this beach also had an incredibly awesome playground!

This is a giant netted merry-go-round! 

View from the playground. 

You can jump on the middle like a trampoline. 

I thought this dolphin was awesome so I had Sterling stop for a photo. Well worth it, I think.

We also stopped to walk along this big ol' bridge. It was actually pretty dirty and there was road on one side and telephone poles on the other, so it was less exciting than I had thought it would be. But the ocean water here---it is just so GORGEOUS. That perfect aqua blue because it is so clean and clear. I love it.

That's the road we were driving on!

 Then, because we had promised Ruthie, we stopped for ice cream. It took us about an hour to get from Key Largo to Marathon Key, so the kids would watch a dvd going and coming. It worked out really well.

This ice cream though, it was amazing. When we walked in we found out they were famous for their frozen key lime pie dipped in dark chocolate, on a stick. Sterling tried it out and was HUGELY impressed. I prefer my key lime sweetened a bit more, and dark chocolate is only so-so. But I can imagine it is divine. I did, however, get moose tracks with fresh fudge and whipped cream on top and it was to die for delicious. They were also a handmade chocolate store and when I walked in it smelled like Christmas at my mom's!

Everything on the Keys is this bright. No joke. Even the road medians are painted turquoise. It was like Miami colors on steroids, haha.

After dinner these guys basically just dropped to sleep. Poor Will didn't get a nap the entire trip and while he did incredibly well, he was wasted by the end of the night. They played so hard!!!! It was such a fabulous day. It literally could not have been better. I already want to go back.