13 Months/Florida Vacation Part 1

We spent a wonderful vacation week down in Pensacola visiting Chris, Cindy, and their kiddos, Kellen (5), Ainsley (3), and Emerson (1).  Their nieces were also visiting for the summer---Jessie (17) and Annie (15).  That's right, there were 12 of us under one roof, 6 of whom were five and under!  It was a week of chaos and fun and we loved absolutely every minute of it!  Chris and Cindy were both off of work---Chris is a teacher and so has the summer off and Cindy is in the process of retiring from the Navy and had finished up her last days of active duty as a nurse just a week before.  Congratulations and thank you, Cindy, for your 20 years of service to our country! We packed the week with tons of activities and made many, many memories.  Thank you, Chris and Cindy, for making our vacation week truly special!

Above, Campbell is spending time in Chris and Cindy's neighborhood pool, just a short walk away from their house.  The kids had a blast, especially Kellen and Hayes, who are both becoming much more confident in their swimming skills and want to swim back and forth to us, not wanting us to go too far from the steps, though.  They both need to learn to take a breath without their feet touching the bottom and they will be swimming like champs!

Here is Campbell ready for the water at a local beach on the Naval base:

Beautiful girl:

Cindy and I rented paddle boards.  Neither of us fell in---they're much more sturdy than I thought.  It was very peaceful to be on the water like that, especially the further from the beach and noisy kids that we got!

Fisher took a quick ride:

Campbell and Emerson both love the bath!

Fisher and Ainsley in their princess shoes:

Here are Annie and Jessie, who helped wrangle the kiddos for us:

Sandy hands--- the beaches in Pensacola have sand that feels like brown sugar---kind of fluffy and large (compared to the very fine sand in SC):

More pics to come on the next post!