"No Labor" Labor Day in Sanibel

Sanibel Island holds a pretty special place in our hearts. Ten years ago, that's where "H" and I got engaged. (Technically speaking, we got engaged on Captiva Island, but that's another story). So when we ended up with three unused tickets on Airtran from a trip that we cancelled back in February, we decided that we would spend the long weekend down on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
On the Friday before Labor Day, we scooped Riley up from school, packed her and Jae and all our stuff into the car and took the 90 minute, traffic laden trip to the airport. We then hopped on board the short flight down to Ft. Myers, (Jaelyn did very well on the flight, btw), climbed into a minivan, and made the trek to over to Sanibel where we had rented a two bedroom condo at "Sanibel Arms West" just steps away from the beach. Exhausted? Absolutely. From the time we left our house to the time we set foot into the condo, we traveled close to 7 hours! No worries though. We had nothing to do but kick back and relax...

The view from our "lanai". The Gulf of Mexico is right behind that building and those palm trees.

Riley's first trip to a beach on Sanibel was bright and early on Saturday morning and she quickly and excitedly discovered what Sanibel beaches are known for - Seashells! There wasn't much else that she was concerned about while we were there. The weekend turned into her constantly asking "Can we go to the beach?" Over the course of the weekend, there would be a total of 7 separate trips to various beaches on the island so that Riles could collect shells.

Riles collecting shells....

.... with her shell, shell collector.

Getting into the action to a lesser extent was Jaelyn. The water of San Carlos Bay was much calmer than the Gulf and allowed "H" to let Jaelyn experience the Ocean for the first time.

H and JJ enjoying the water.

Though JJ did enjoy her time in the water, more often than not, she was doing this...

Before leaving for home we did get to go over towards Captiva where the waves were a whole lot rougher. This might have been the only time all weekend that Riley lost interest in looking for shells.

Incoming wave...

Impact...

Immersion...

Recovery and repeat!

That evening, after cleaning sand and shells out of every possible place on Riles, we headed back out for dinner and to see the sunset on the Gulf...

Sunset over the gulf

Riley's reaction when we told her that we'd come back to Sanibel next year.

All in all, it was a great vacation: Wonderful weather, great food, fantastic company. Can't wait to do it again next year!