Navarre Beach Mardi Gras Parade

Although New Orleans is about 3 hours away from here, Mardi Gras is still a pretty big deal. There are so many parades and not near enough time to attend all of them. This is the first year we've gone to the parade at Navarre Beach and it was by far bigger and better than their Christmas parade, much better! At first the kids were very whiny about attending, but once it got underway they were quite excited.

Start of the parade, Mr. Shawn throwing some beads.

There were all kinds of interesting sights to see.

The kids even got stuffed animals thrown at them.

Our neighbors with the Krewe of the Karibbean.

   

Cutter's teacher from preschool. He had no clue who she was at first, but was so excited when she took her mask off.

This doesn't begin to show the beads we ended up with. They would get heavy so they would take them off and stick them in a bag and collect some more.

Stitches

Last week, smack in the middle of Spring Break, Cutter decided to give us a little excitement and worry. While playing outside with Tucker and Sailor, he managed to fall off of the back of Hank's truck (which he wasn't suppose to be on) and cut his leg on one of the tail pipes. Hank brought him in the house and told me we need to go to the doctor. Honestly, he was so dirty I was a little embarrassed to take him anywhere. Fortunately, my parents were visiting so Hank and I were both able to go to the ER with him.

He was more worried about how they would fix his leg, the fear of the unknown.

  Seriously, most of him was this nasty.

After a little cleaning.

A little topical anesthetic for some numbing and more cleaning.

  Cutter cried the entire time they injected the anesthetic (can't blame him) but insisted on watching as they stitched him up.

All that excitement must have been exhausting, he was quickly out on the way home.

Cape San Blas

In need of a get away, a few weeks ago we took a road trip to Cape San Blas. We had been there before when we lived in Panama City, but had not been back since. We thought it would be a great day trip for the kids. We stopped in Mexico Beach for lunch at one of our old favorites, Toucan's. A lot has changed in 13 years, but the food was still good and the view over the Gulf of Mexico is gorgeous.

Cape San Blas has changed a lot in 13 years also. This picture does not begin to show the amount of trees covering the beaches in some places. It was truly an obstacle course to get down the beach to where we wanted to go, the kids loved it.

A rare shot of all three.

  The lighthouse and old lightkeepers quarters.
 On our first trip down here years ago those houses were located on the beach, closer to the water, and about to collapse. Over the years they were moved and repaired, although I can see a big decline from the last time we saw them. Hurricanes and storms sure take a toll on them.

Seriously, can you believe how blue that sky is?! Gorgeous!

  We are usually always prepared with a bucket to collect seashells.

Cutter loved all the climbing and balancing.

 

 

We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day.

Thawing out

After our few days of absolute freezing temperatures and weather, we were quite antsy to get out of the house and get our toes back in the sand. It was still chilly out, but warm enough that in the mornings and evenings we had lots of fog rolling in off the water. It was a little eery and beautiful at the same time.

I think the birds were ready for a warm up as well.

 

Even with the sun setting, you can see the line of clouds and fog off shore.

A little run on the beach to burn some energy.