Florida Trip - Part 2: Beach House Reunion

My parents had floated the idea of getting together again for another family reunion to break up the cold winter.  Because of COVID concerns, they wanted to avoid big, potentially crowded resorts, so they proposed renting a beach house somewhere.  We helped research locations reasonably close to an airport where the ocean would be warm enough to play in February with a house big enough to hold everyone that would come and settled on Stuart, FL.  Ultimately, COVID and other concerns kept my sisters and their families away, but we were happy that in addition to my parents, my brother Aaron and his family (wife Allyson and 3 kids: Russell - age 11, Courtney - age 8, and Maxwell - age 5) agreed to fly down from Alaska to warm up.  

We were the first to arrive since everyone else was flying in that day, so after unloading food and suitcases, we hurried around to get acquainted with the property and its attractions.  The beach and the ocean was the first stop, and Lydia made good on her promise that she wanted to jump in the waves.

This house (and this area) was in a fantastic location as we were right on the beach for ocean access, and the property extended across the street where we had beach front access to the Indian River that had calmer water to take kayaks and other water toys out.  Karina and Tanja took advantage of a relaxing hammock on the river side.

Here are Derek and I riding around on a water tricycle (one of the water toys) in the river.

 

The girls were very excited to play with their cousin Courtney and I think Courtney was glad to have friends to play with as well.  Those three spent a lot of time together over the course of the week.

The house had a small heated spa pool that amounted to a very large hot tub (in addition to the regular hot tub toward the beach).  It was good to float around, but was too small for everyone in the house to actually swim in at the same time.

Grandma and Derek went into the ocean and ran away from the waves - if you zoom in on the picture, that's me in the distance floating on top of a boogie board.  I was unsuccessful in getting on top of a wave to ride all the way back in, but I had fun anyway.

Derek was eager to have a friend to play with too.  Maxwell was a little shy, but gradually warmed up to Derek's over-eager attentions.  Grandpa and Derek helped bury Maxwell in the beach sand.

Early in the week, Lydia was on the beach and as a wave crashed over her, she lost her glasses and they were swept away by the tide.  It was an early disaster and in the immediate aftermath, no one could find the glasses, so we figured they were gone.  A few hours later, I was standing in the surf just relaxing and felt something large and light against my feet.  I figured it was a large shell (there were lots of shells on this section of beach), reached down, and was amazed to wrap my hands around Lydia's glasses.  The lenses were scratched, but other than that, they were functional enough for her to use the remainder of the trip (we have since ordered her a new pair with an updated prescription).  Prayers answered and a lesson learned as she was careful the remainder of the trip to not wear her glasses to the beach.

Our portion of the beach was clear of rocks/coral, but next door, we had rocks that the ocean had carved and if the tide was low, we could walk into some of the cool caves.  Lydia was an adventurous explorer and eager to be the subject of pictures in the rocks. 

Here's Courtney with one of many bins we used to hold pretty seashells we found.

Tanja, Derek, Karina, and Courtney relaxing in the hot tub that sat on a raised platform overlooking the beach and the ocean.  Our beach house is the brown one with red doors in the background.

On the river side, there was a long dock for fishing and boating and the house had several fishing poles.  Aaron and Grandpa helped the kids that were interested catch whatever fish we could off the dock.  Here's Aaron and Maxwell trying to catch something.

Russell, Grandma, Lydia, and Grandpa (Aaron and Maxwell in the background).

Grandpa was a great teacher and Lydia loved catching every fish that bit her hook.  Here she is reeling one in.

The successful fisher woman:

So happy to catch a fish, she started dancing on the dock spontaneously.

Maxwell caught one too - he was excited too, but too scared to get too close to it.

I have wanted to go on a deep sea fishing trip for a while, and since Stuart is the self-proclaimed Sailfish Capital of the World, this seemed as good an opportunity as any.  I'm a fair weather fisherman - catching fish is exciting, "fishing" itself is a hit-or-miss affair.  Aaron and Grandpa are much more into fishing than I am.  Russell, Aaron, Grandpa, and I woke up early one morning to head out on the ocean and try our luck fishing.

The weather cooperated, but I was still having issues with my equilibrium until the next morning because of rocking in the boat.  Poor Russell got seasick much more than anyone else, but still said he had fun.  I managed to catch a 2.5 foot sand shark - about the same size as the one Russell caught later.  I was annoyed that our captain threw my shark back before I got a picture of it.  Oh well.

The biggest and most exciting fish we caught was this goliath grouper that Aaron reeled in (using a fish for bait that Grandpa caught and we were otherwise planning on eating ourselves).  I was initially upset that we were using our dinner as bait until Aaron managed to bring this one to the surface.  The captain estimated it at 90 pounds and I thought we could have lots of dinners out of it.  Then I was incredibly disappointed when the captain cut the line and let it go without so much as a good photograph on the boat.  Turns out that the goliath grouper is a protected species that was out of season - something I didn't understand when we started fishing for it.

So for all our efforts, we came back with two fish that we caught in the river after abandoning our efforts on the ocean; they were tasty enough for a few bites that we each got since fresh fish always tastes best.  But it wasn't the haul I was hoping for to make a meal of fish tacos for everyone.  Oh well.

While we were gone on the fishing trip, the younger kids played on the beach with Grandma, Tanja, and Allyson.

The tide coming in and crashing over the rocks next to us made for a cool effect.

Derek's very good at being silly for the camera if he is in the right mood.

Then everyone got to write in the sand.

Our beach house in the background - the hot tub is on the platform above the kayaks.

The kids dug around and made several sand castles and other creations - some of which were decorated with seashells that we found.

Derek got buried in the sand.

Tanja, Grandma, and the kids took some kayaks out into the river to paddle around.  Poor Tanja was overloaded with three kids in hers.

Maxwell brought his "Who Would Win: Battle Royale" book that pairs animals together to see who would win in a hypothetical fight.  Derek had read this before as a library book and was excited to see it again.  So the little guys got Grandpa (who was sporting a Fu Manchu mustache) to read it to them one night.

One night, we enjoyed the fire pit along the river and roasted marshmallows for s'mores.

 Our kids and Courtney fit on the large hammock at the end of a fun day together.