Pensacola: Sunburns and Crab Hunts

Oh my word. We got FRIED yesterday. We're talking red and prickly...sensitive and afraid to go outside. So we're finding "alternate activities" today...at least while the sun is in the sky. 

Shell Swap!

Shaving mutton chops just for fun...

We masked up and ventured out to find some souvenirs for the kids. We finally found some Trump merch we would be willing to support.

The kids had fun shopping. Ethan found a great beach bum hat, Laney a pretty shell windchime, Anna chose a cute beachy backpack, Everly fell in love with a stuffed unicorn with a candy jar belly. Mathew couldn't settle on anything, but we won't give up. We've got two more days to purchase a memory for him...I got a cute teal bracelet and a sunshine keychain...don't laugh..I see my keys everyday and when I do, I get to relive the memories we are making as I spend hour upon hour upon hour in my car. Mark bought flippers and a snorkel. He wanted to go out with Todd to see the fish at the reef.

We hit up Whataburger for lunch and then hung out at the Flynns condo and watched movies. I took a nap...the kind where you hope you don't snort or drool into their couch pillow, but you just can't resist. We hadn't brought our swimming suits because we couldn't imagine wanting to go back to the beach...but then...we did want to go back. I volunteered to drive back to our place to retrieve them all. I was happy to do it. I have missed my singing-out-loud time in the car. I needed to have a minute...maybe 48 minutes...to myself.  I fit in a couple dozen songs and managed to snag a picture of the iconic Pensacola Beach water tower.

We headed down just after the sun set. It felt perfect...warm and breezy.

Mathew was the most sunburned of us all. He didn't put on any sunscreen yesterday. And he paid all night for it. Poor kid didn't even sleep till 3 am when he woke me up to put lidocaine gel on and I gave him some ibuprofen. That didn't stop him from getting in tonight to do some snorkeling and letting the temporary relief of the water wash over his back. ugh...I wish I had thought to stop him and insist on sunscreen yesterday!

He was rewarded with this cool crab shell! Definitely a keeper!

Laney went out with the boogie board.

The moon rose fat and red. Pictures never ever show how amazing the sun and moon can be. I mean...this moon was HUGE. Look at that tiny little dot...ridiculous!

Courtney taught us how to find crabs in the sand with our flash lights. It was so fun!

I am telling you, these things are SO CREEPY. They are just as scary as spiders in every possible way, but the girls were chasing them down and picking them up with their hands....it was a thing to behold.

My favorite was the big ones. Everyone would circle around it and try to get it to stop scurrying, but if it got too close, screams and squeals would precede full body shivers and cowardly retreat. Mark or Todd or Anna would grab at them and try to fling them in the bucket along with a large handful of sand so as not to have to feel it's legs to much.

Bleh.

Bleh bleh....

We did eventually let them free....some of them by hand (good gravy!) and a few lept out of Anna's hands and skittered all over her legs....(no. no. no.)

The moon just got prettier and prettier.

We headed back to the condo and let the girls swim in the pool (how in the world do they still want to swim???). Courtney took a call from the our stake presidency and received a call to be a seminary teacher...she was dumbfounded and feeling inadequate.  I think that's par for the course with that calling. She'll be amazing.

 Mark made a batch of cookies and Mathew started really feeling the consequences of the additional salt water on his skin...he was torn between freezing in his shorts and needing a cool breeze on his back.  He chose to freeze it out and ease the pain.

Kylie and Muttonchop Eef...sharing some tunes.

Ice cream and video games until we could barely see straight.

What shall we do tomorrow? Well...maybe we should, um, go to the beach and hang out with the Flynns?

Good plan.