Gator Gratitude and the Beach- October 16th 2010

I have never been anywhere with as much school pride or enthusiasm for school sports as Gainesville, Florida. Everywhere I go I find people clad in blue, orange and white. These Floridians hang gator flags on their houses, have gator mailboxes, fill their store front windows with gator logos and as if this wasn't enough, they transform their vehicles into permanent gator parade floats.  Even the school system caters it's schedule to accommodate all major University of Florida events.  To avoid being overrun by the many tail-"gators" on home game days, the law library closes causing Tyler to study at home. At first I found the overwhelming enthusiasm of these fans extremely annoying as I tried to keep two little children from bothering their dad every other Saturday while he tried to study. But over the last few weeks I've realized that I owe these fans a debt of gratitude. If it weren't for their over the top devotion to team spirit, I would never have found the courage to escape town on a home game day and tackle the sand and salty sea at Crescent Beach on my own, pregnant, with two very adventurous little children. We left mid morning, arrived at the beach shortly after lunch and had a fabulous afternoon building sandcastles, splashing in the waves, finding shells, crabs and eating yummy treats! Here are a few pics...

This is Noah after he found his first sea shell. Having lived lived in Washington for the past three years this was the kids' first trip to the beach that they can remember. Noah didn't even know what a sea shell was at first!

 Naomi didn't like the water. She got splashed in the face once and thereafter declared the water "scary." When I asked her why it was scary her reply was "sharks."

Fortunately she LOVED the sand. Naomi was an excellent bulldozer too. Every time I tried to build a wall for my sand castle she knocked it down before I could fill my bucket again!

Since we went to the beach mid October the water was a little chilly. This is Noah warming up.

The Skittles were a big hit!!

This is Noah pointing to a crab that we found. Noah thought he was pretty cool . Maybe that was because the crab was dead and couldn't chomp at us.

We were all sad to say good bye to the beach. But, after an eventful day it was time to go home, take baths, and let Tyler have the car so he could go watch the game with some friends. GO GATORS!!