Living at the Beach

So after leaving our relaxing home on the Seneca River in late June, we drove down to Florida to our next small piece of paradise. We moved into a little three bedroom house on stilts on Siesta Key, one of the barrier islands on the gulf coast in Sarasota. We sold a bunch of furniture and put some things in storage in order to fit into our little home, but it was totally worth it. We live a short walk from the beach and we love to spend time swimming, snorkeling, fishing, digging, walking and watching sunsets. We've tried several different local beaches, but our favorites are the ones closest to home: Siesta Beach and our little private neighborhood beach.

This is Siesta Beach at the main beach access. This picture doesn't do the beach justice: it is a jaw dropping beautiful beach. I was shocked at how beautiful it was the first time I saw it. The sand is white and soft and it never feels hot, so walking across this long stretch of sand is a pleasure.

David looking for sand crabs.

Calvin swimming in his hole. His favorite thing to do is dig with a "shubble" so we make lots of swimming holes like this. He also loves to swim in the gulf and is pretty good at handling the waves.

Andrew cooling off.

Sunset.

Our neighborhood beach is small and the sand isn't quite as nice, but it's private and there's a reef just 20 yards out or so that the boys like to explore. It's a great fishing spot and it's the only nearby beach were we can bring our dog.

Calvin enjoying a stick. That's Lido key on the right.

Here's David showing off the bait fish he caught with his cast net.

We've caught crabs and different types of fish at this beach and the boys love to eat what we catch. Andrew decided he wanted to eat one of these little fish raw. I told him to go for it. First he bit it until it stopped moving.

Then he just kind of dug in. There were too many little bones to spit out, so he fed the rest of his fish to a seagull.

Here's everybody just doin' their thing.

I can hardly believe our time here is 1/4 over. We're just trying to make the most of this one short year!