Port St. Joe - A Florida Family Vacation (Part 2)

We had so much fun I couldn't fit it all into one blog post.  We're back from vacation and about to head into the 4th of July weekend and I'd be lying if I said I remembered exactly what day we did each thing (this is why I blog as quickly as I can).  So, I'll do my best to recount it.  

Wednesday we rented a pontoon for the day and spent the day on the water.  The kids wanted to fish (we didn't catch anything...wah wah...) and the adults wanted to explore.  I'm not usually the first person to sign up for water excursions - the motion sickness and all - but, how could I miss out?  So I strapped on my reliefband and off we went.  It took us some time to get our bearing straight and to figure out where we wanted to go, but once we figured out a plan it all started to come together.  Unfortunately there really was no place for us to dock and get out for food/drinks, but that's ok, it meant we got the most out of the boat.  We found a place where the kids could swim and a few spots where they could try and fish.  We docked at a tiny nature park area where we could get off and explore for a few minutes.  I wish we'd have asked the owner a few more questions before we set sail, because we didn't see a single other boat where we ended up...which makes me think we missed the memo.  But, in the end, we had a great day and that's all that matters!

One morning we followed Ryan's suggestion and we explored Cape San Blas - a TINY spit of land just north of our house.  At the end there is a huge state park (with a brand new campground!) where there was hiking and beach access.  We thought we'd try to hike, but the campground host we met advised against it.  He said it was a 6 mile out and back and that they'd already hauled a few people off the trail earlier this year and with the kids in tow, it really just wasn't in the cards for us anyways.  We opted for a shorter hike (1.5 miles) which turned out to be all any of us wanted to do...and we ended it with my favorite ice cream stop of the entire trip.  Calories were fully worth it! 

The 4 of us "kids" snuck in a quick date night on the last night and that was super fun!  We really did have a great time with Joey and Andy on this trip and I think it's the best the 4 kids have ever done.  Even Mom and Dad commented at one point.

Hazel's birthday was the day after we got back from vacation so we took the opportunity to celebrate as a family - and...nobody is sad about delicious bakery cake - certainly not me!

One adventure we wanted to do, but didn't quite have time for was to kayak the Dead Lakes.  It was about an hour long drive away from our house and it was so hot and buggy we knew that if we wanted to do it, we'd need to get up and out of the house by 5 or 6 am for it to be enjoyable.  We opted not to do it, but, on our way back to the airport on Saturday we had some time to kill so we took a slightly longer route and drove past the area to see what it looked like.  The pictures in the magazine weren't inacurate...it looked just as cool as the pictures made it seem.  If we are ever in this area again, we'll 100% take the time to kayak and explore this area.