I drove until around 3:15a and then Heather took over for the remaining 3 hours.  We arrived on the island a little before 7a. We decided to get setup on the beach and then had breakfast at AMI beach cafe.  It was a little chilly at 8a, but the sun soon came up and it hit the high 70’s throughout the day. We spent the whole day on the beach and even had lunch at AMI beach café too.  

Late in the afternoon, we drove over to the house to unpack.  A few of us took a nap and others headed over for the beach sunset.  We then went to the grocery and came back and made dinner.  The gang is pretty shot, so we all started to turn in.  But when LSU came back on #6 Florida, I had to stay up and watch the rest.  LSU (2-4) upset Florida (6-1) on a 57 yard field goal with 28 seconds to go.

We had all planned to get up and walk down to The Donut Experiment, one of the family faves, but we slept in til past 9a.  We got up and had a quick breakfast and then headed over to Bradenton for Tessa’s parasailing.  The rest of the family did this a few years back in Key West, but Tess was too young, so today was her turn.  Trevor joined her on the boat as an observer and the rest of us went shopping in Bradenton.

After Tessa’s ride, we went back to the house and made lunch.  Then everyone went to the beach and I watched some football and worked.  I then joined them and we played Can-Jam and soccer on the beach.  We took some sunset pics and then walked back to the house.  I ordered Oma’s Pizza for dinner (another one of our faves) and we had a great family night watching a movie.  Around midnight, we walked back over to the beach and laid out a blanket and watched the meteor shower.  What a great day. I sooo love having all 5 of us here together.  I am blessed to have this family.

The 3 of us decided to walk the 1.5 miles to Skinny’s and had lunch there.  It was a nice walk down the beach with a good breeze.  After Skinny’s we went to some local shops and finally tried out a new ice cream place Small Town Creamery across from the Dr. Office.  This is actually a bar not a medical facility.  After enjoying our ice cream, we walked the rest of the way back to 64^th street.  We hung out and watched Christmas movies.  The other two decided to stay in Siesta Key and we will connect with them tomorrow.

It was just mom, dad, and Tess since the other two are still in Siesta Key.  We got up and had some breakfast and then headed over to the beach. The other 2 soon joined us.  It was pretty much a beach day. We had planned to do some beach photos so we came back and get all dressed up in white and blue.  The skies didn’t cooperate with a beautiful sunset for our pics, but we still got some great beach photos.

We went to the Sandbar for dinner. It was much better food than we all remembered.  After dinner, we came back and watched Christmas movies.  We hear that there is a couple inches of snow forecasted for home. Not here at the beach…

This morning, I worked as the others walked down the beach to Pine ave.  The plan was for me to meet them at the Donut Experiment later and we would shop down Pine ave.  It was forecasted to rain in the afternoon so we walked around all morning and shopped. We walked out to the new AMI Pier, but the restaurant still wasn’t open.  Afterwards we came back to the house.

We ended up taking a drive up to Bradenton for BW3 for a late lunch.  Mom also wanted to check out the restaurant near Cortez – Starfish Company something or other, so we stopped by there.  Since the rain picked up, we headed back to the house and it rained pretty much most of the evening. 

Thursday (12/17)