Today was a sad day for the Young Gang. We had to sacrifice a tent to the beach gods.... and it wasn't even our tent. Let me back up though and recap the entire day before that terrible event occurred. (Also... I'm kidding. It was an amazing day.)
We woke up pretty early again this morning. I think the kids were up around 6:30 or 7. I honestly do not remember entirely. Will did significantly better last night than the night before. We had another hour of him being awake in the middle of the night but he wasn't awake nearly as long as the night before so I call that a win.
After getting everyone ready and loading (then unloading and reloading) the car, we were on our way. We were so grateful to Mike and Sevie for hosting our brood for the weekend. Four people (including a toddler and baby) can be a lot and they were awesome hosts. We stopped at Cracker Barrel for breakfast. In usual Kenzie fashion, she didn't eat much but both kids enjoyed our breakfast stop. Will talked to everyone around us and flirted with all the waitresses. Those big blue eyes are going to get him in trouble one of these days. Lord, help us.
We were on our way to the Keys after breakfast with plans to arrive at Robbie's right around 11:45. Kenzie was so excited to see the ocean and get to the "fish place." She jabbered on and on about that for quite some time. We ended up stopped at World Wide Sportsman first as it is North on US 1. Kenzie LOVED the fish in the tank and getting on the boat in the middle of the store. We ended up buying all of us matching shirts. They are technically patriotic shirts, but we always get the Old Navy ones for the actual Fourth of July so I think we will probably wear them when we go to lunch on my birthday on the 3rd. I'm sure Steven will be thrilled to hear that. He must love when I match all of us on a random day. After checking out everything inside, we went outside to look at the docks and the fish around there. There were quite a few huge tarpon hanging around and a ton of jellyfish. It is actually the first time I have seen jellyfish there. Kenzie told me that they were "dancing". I love the way her mind works.
We then got back in the car and headed towards Robbie's. We ended up hitting a bit of a snag here. First, Will decided he had enough of the car ride for some reason and started to fuss a bit. Nothing major, but a bit out of the norm for him. Then, Kenzie decided she needed water... right that moment. As it turns out, it was a bit after noon anyway so we pulled into Robbie's, about faced, and went back North on US 1 to Burger King for lunch. Options in the Keys are limited so we figured it was easier to turn around and go to a place we knew instead of continuing on and chancing not finding anything.
After lunch we went back to Robbie's. We paid our dues to go out on the dock and get a bucket of fish. Kenzie was amazed at the number of tarpon hanging around. After Steven fed them once, Kenzie decided she needed to feed them as well. This kid has no fear... or very little, at least. She dug her hand into that bucket, came out with a fish and threw it to the tarpon in the water. She was so excited when they all tried to gobble it up at once. I think she ended up feeding more tarpon than Steven did. After feeding all our fish to the tarpon, we walked up and down the dock for a bit before heading back to the car to finish our drive to the hotel in Marathon.
It was an uneventful drive and Steven and I were able to enjoy it together because both kids decided to nap. Works for us. We got the hotel right around 3pm, checked in, lugged half our worldly possessions to the room, changed into bathing suits, and headed back out. We wanted to go to Publix to pick up everything for a picnic before heading to my favorite beach ever, Bahia Honda.
Unfortunately, because we do not have the luxury of wandering around a beach looking for the perfect spot with two kids in tow, we settled on a small area right near the boardwalk to the beach when we got there. It wasn't bad, but it was in an area that didn't have an exceptionally shallow area to play in. We could see that area farther down, but it was too far to walk with two kids.
We started our Bahia Honda trip by lathering up the kids with sunblock. However, they were both so excited that they both started playing in sand right away so their sunblock application seemed more like a full body exfoliation. I don't think either of them minded. Kenzie was content to dig away at the sand and I think that Will consumed more sand than any almost 8 month old will ever need in their belly. It is amazing how different they are. Kenzie at Will's age was not into sand... actually up until this trip she refused to walk in it most of the time without her water shoes. This time she was gung ho about running around in the sand. Will sat right down in it and made himself at home. Once everyone was sufficiently sunblocked, we started setting up the tent we brought that we borrowed from Mom and Dad Y. Unfortunately, it was way too windy and we almost lost it down the beach when it became a sail. Oh well. No harm, no foul. We removed the cover from it and just left it as it was so we could play in the water. Unlike the past, Kenzie decided that the water was the place to be. We aren't sure if it was the warm surf temp or the fact that it is much calmer than Cocoa, but she loved it and every time Daddy and her came in, she asked to go back out. She held on to Daddy because it wasn't that shallow so she couldn't reach the bottom, but she was having a blast. Will loved it too. He laughed anytime a wave hit him.
After swimming for a while (and bordering very close to "feeding time" which makes me a bit nervous), we tried to take the rest of the tent down and found that one corner of it refused to close. Steven and I both tried for a while before we gave up for the moment because both kids were either eating sand or rolling around in it. Instead, we walked down the beach to the showers. I am still so amazed that two people that are so small can gather so much sand so quickly. We got the kids cleaned off and walked over to the pavilions where we planned to eat dinner. Steven went back out to try to close the tent. He spent a good 10 minutes trying before giving up again for a while. We had our picnic dinner consisting of chicken from Publix, watermelon, and random other items that Kenzie consumed (like her applesauce, mandarins, and goldfish.) We also had chips and cookies with us, but because of our concern over the tent, we didn't worry about them. After eating, Steven tried to close the tent one more time. It was a lost cause. Eventually, after some discussion with Mom Y, we had to give up and leave it. Steven tried to drag it off the beach and was only moderately successful. We did our best. We think the one leg was either rusted or had something in it and it just would not budge no matter what we tried.
As we expected would happen, Will was asleep before we even drove out of the park. Kenzie (surprisingly) stayed awake the entire way back to the hotel. We kept talking to her and asking her to sing us songs to keep her awake. Once back, we bathed both kids and then prepared for what we were both pretty sure was going to be the worst time of the entire trip.
We have never stayed in one hotel room with both kids at the same time. We have always either stayed at a hotel with a separate living area we could use or at someone's house where we are able to put the kids (at least Will) down separately for bed. As it turns out, we were worried for nothing. Will nursed for what seemed like forever, then I laid him down awake. He fussed for less than 10 seconds, rolled around for another minute or two and fell asleep. We let Kenzie watch tv for a few minutes to calm her down and as I type this she is rolling around in the bed trying to go to sleep. She is actually more of a problem than Will. We thought it would be him. We will see how the night goes with all of us together but we are hoping for more success.
Tomorrow we are going to hang out around here before lunch and then head down to Key West for the afternoon. We are hoping to catch the sunset festival, but we will see. It (obviously) happens at sunset, so we don't know how the kids will do. Should be a fun day, regardless.
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