Florida!

I can't believe that it's been almost a month since our trip to the beach and I am just now getting my pictures together...I guess it's better late than never!  Riley's first beach was in Seward Alaska which, while amazing, may have been slightly misleading as freezing cold rain was blowing sideways and the ocean was almost too cold to touch.  Roo had been talking about going to the beach for a while, in particular, Florida, so that she could surf and visit the Disney castle.  We plan to take our princess to see the castle someday, but we decided this was not the trip for Disneyworld and instead, we chose Naples where we could spend the entire week at the beach!

Both girls did great on the long flight down there and also the drive through Aligator Alley to get over to the Gulf.  The second that we got into our condo and set down our bags Roo was ready to hit the beach!  She even picked out her own special outfit for the beach....

Riley's reaction to the seeing the ocean was everthing I hoped it would be!  She was beyond happy to be running through the sand and jumping into the ocean...it was the best! I'm pretty sure that Piper loved the warm water and sand between her toes too!

We had a great condo that was just steps to the beach so that we could easily go back and forth and being in Naples made it easy to take daytrips to a few other places we wanted to visit like Sanibel Island and Marco Island.  Sanibel is known for amazing shelling and we were there we did find some great shells and Kris also came up with an urchin and a starfish (or "sea star" as Riley calls it), but they were still living and we put them back into the ocean.

In Marco, we visited our friends, the Nichols, who took us out on their boat and Riley was able to see dolphins really close up as they chased the boat. She was absolutely amazed! We spent the rest of our day relaxing in the pool and Piper had her very first swim! She is definitely a water baby, she loved it!

 We ate dinner at one of our fave Marco hangouts, the Snook Inn, where Riley met her Marco Island BFF, Olivia. Riley loves everything about being "twins" by which she means dressing alike with someone, so needless to say, she was beyond excited to see another little girl at the restaurant wearing the exact same dress that she had on, she had to meet her right away. We quickly found out that Olivia and Riley were destined to be friends and were pretty blown away by all of the coincidences. Olivia was celebrating her 4th birthday that day, May 24, exactly 1 month after Roo. She and her family were visiting in Marco and live in Snowmass Colorado, she has a cousin with Riley's birthday and 2 other cousins who are named Riley and Avery (which was our runner-up name for Roo) and what absolutely sealed their friendship was their shared obsession...mermaids. They were both clutching mermaid dolls. I wish that we had met them sooner, because the girls had so much fun together! The good news is that they have family in Arvada that they visit regularly and we exchanged info so that the girls can meet up again back here in Colorado!

We spent most of our time in Naples just hanging out together and building sandcastles, swiming in the ocean, catching amazing sunsets and eating some fabulous food!  I loved every second watching the pure joy radiating out of Riley while she played in the sand and sea! 

Piper was not quite as excited as her big sis about all of the sand, sun and humidity, but she was a trooper! She hung out in the various shade structures we made for her and aside from trying to keep cool she also wanted to stay hydrated and was happiest when she could be nursing...so I came back from the beach not nearly as tan as I used to as I spent most of my time cuddling her in the shade.

We loved our beach vacay and cannot wait to get back there!