Key West for REAL, part 2

Wednesday

We woke up on Wednesday and heard Tank say, "Look, Elijah!  There's a rooster in Julianne's back yard!"  Elijah didn't even look.  He said, "There's ALWAYS a rooster."  If you've been to Key West, you know it's true.  Roosters run free all over the island.  I think it's supposed to be quirky and cute, like Hemingway's 6-toed cats.

Wednesday was our day for sailing!  Sailing isn't cheap, but if you're going to go to a subtropical island, you HAVE to go sailing!  I think that's a Vacation Rule.

The kids loved it, of course!  We saw dolphins and felt the lean of the boat and drank all their free water.  Tank was especially into it.  He wouldn't take his eyes off the ocean (which he called the 'sea,' and that's adorable) and he was so excited to see dolphins.  Unfortunately he was the only one who didn't see them.  ...  I think he did see them, he just didn't recognize them.  They didn't jump out of the water or anything, so you had to kind of know what to look for.

Captain Andrew was great with the kids and he let each of them sail the boat.  Very cool.  He told Miciah that she was very good at sailing and then said, "You need to get this girl sailing lessons."  Right.  On which ocean nearest me?

Also, there was this great crazy tipsy guy on the boat with us.  New England accent.  He kept telling us he was from Connecticut.  For the rest of my life I will be referring to him as Midlife Crisis.  I don't think I've ever met anyone that was a caricature of a person until Midlife Crisis.  He kept saying, "Are you seeing this?  They're steering the boat.  They're ACTUALLY steering it.  This is the real deal.  Are you seeing this?"  Wasn't much to do but smile.  "I'm moving down here.  I'm done.  I told my kids, 'I'm already gone.'  It's done.  I'm gone.  I've already looked at 2 houses in Florida.  It's done."  Okey dokey.  And, my personal favorite:  With his third beer in hand, "This is a natural high.  No, really.  Look at this.  We're on the ocean.  The sun is shining.  Sails above you.  I mean, this is the real deal!"  Uh huh.

Afterwards Key West Friend took Miciah on a date to the Shipwreck Museum and Rob and I walked back to the Navy base with the boys.  We bought souvenirs and what did the boys want?  Pirate toys that we could buy at our local Walgreens.  But they were happy and the toys were cheap, so it's all good.

Miciah trying on the old school diving mask at the Shipwreck Museum.

Teancom the Pirate

We put the kids to bed early because they were wiped out and CRAZY.  We waited until Elijah had passed out and then Rob and I went on our real date.  We walked down Duval Street, which is the famous night life place.  The challenge is called the Duval Crawl, where you get one drink at every bar on Duval Street, and there are probably 25 bars.  Rob and I passed on the challenge and just walked down the street, which was interesting enough.  Lots of ladies of various sorts (naked ones in pictures, dancing ones, scantily clad ones, not-really-ladies dressed in drag), t-shirts of questionable value, and souvenirs that you'd only buy if you were drunk.  All-in-all, it was our kind of place.

One of the things that I love about our trip to Key West is that our kids will have fond memories of the island, and they won't remember the party side.  They'll think that it was beautiful and fun and nice.  And they won't know what on Duval Street after 7 p.m. the party REALLY starts.  :)  Hurray for Key West.

Anyways, on our date we went to Caroline's on Duval Street and ate the best key lime pie I've ever had.  We bought a whole pie to take home for Thanksgiving.  Which brings us to ...

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 2010
The first order of business was taking family pictures on the beach.  We'd been planning this for ages, because Key West Friend is a good amateur photographer and she has a great camera.  I LOVE the way the pictures turned out!  In a few weeks I'll have a large print posted on my living room wall.  Hurray!

Here are the kids all prepped and ready to go.  I wanted to take the boys' pictures while their hair was still combed, since that was bound to last all of 90 seconds.

My favorite part of my little pre-photo shoot photo shoot was that Elijah was completely uncooperative.  Not shocking.  To get the photo above, Rob had to tell him some joke about a chicken.  This is a photo taken moments before, when he said, "This IS my smile!"

Yes.  Clearly.

Then we cooked and cooked and baked and cooked and washed dishes and prepped for our Thanksgiving meal.  It was super tasty, we enjoyed our time with friends, and Miciah decorated this adorable table for us:

Check out how much effort she put into this table.  She was so excited about it.  Cracked me up.  The girl is a born party planner.  (Bummer she has me for a mom.  I'm a born anti-party planner.  Less work = better.)

It rained on Thanksgiving day and into the evening, so it was good that we got our photo shoot out of the way.  Also, it meant that Rob missed his Key West sunset.

...  to be continued  ...