We survived our kid led vacation

So, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I let the kids plan and budget our family vacation. I gave the kids a total of $500 to go anywhere and do anything they wanted. They wanted to go to the beach, hiking and caving. A friend that Willy Sr works with offered up his beach home in Cape San Blas, FL for the cleaning fee and utilities (score). We borrowed a kayak from a friend, made homemade meals, loaded up the fishing poles and we're off!

Load'n up the kids and Kayak

Shhh don't tell anyone I forgot to pack my own underwear and wore Lisa's all week but I TOTALLY remembered my Diet Dr. Pepper

Before we even left the house we were already down $100 in shark fishing supplies. Our fishing poles were not equipped properly to catch sharks, and of course what happens when you mention to Willy Sr that there is a budget, he gets some hair brained idea and spend every last penny, plus some. So, he convinced the kids that shark fishing was an intercal part of family vacations. We spent another $120 on food and snacks to last us all week so we would not have to eat out and also because there is no where to eat out there. So before were out the door were already down $220.
 
We left around lunch time with the intention of getting drive-through, drive and have Sawyer fall asleep as soon as he was done eating. Sawyer is still rear facing so Lisa is in charge of him during our long drives. It is only 2.5 hours to Cape San Blas but it's amazing what happens to me when I get behind the wheel, the need to pee overcomes me like waves in an ocean, so all of our trips require me to stop about every 1.5 hours. With that knowledge we started out our trip with the kids debating between Wendy's and Jimmy Johns. Even though Jimmy Johns is more expensive they chose that. At that moment, I was not feeling to confident about how their budgeting skills were going to go over. $40 later were on the road.

Aunt Becca before being attacked by a 100 lb tarpin jumping out of the water.

Uncle Hunter keeping Sawyer warm

Aunt Becca and Uncle Hunter came to spend 2.5 days with us and it was great. The kids love them so much and hopefully they had a good time with us too! Naturally in my typical style I came down with a stomach bug on Wednesday and threw up all over my car (in a plastic bag, not literally all over my car).Other than an illusive light house that was "In transit" (how and why do you transport a light house) we had a great week. We fished, ate, laughed and relaxed. Sadly, we did not catch any shark. We did however manage to catch 2 sing rays and get to observe how amazingly well they blend into the ocean and billions (8) of sea bass. We also found 2 horse shoe crab carcasses which were really fun to observe (and maybe Eitan peed on one on purpose).

The art of selfies needs to be taught at a young age.

Our last day we went down the the national park for some hiking. As soon as we stepped out of the car it started sprinkling and then pouring.We ended up just driving around looking for wild critters. We did manage to find a few deer and steer the car towards a few sea gulls while I may shouted things like "GROSS" and "I'M GUNNA GET YOU" , though, I never did successfully run over a gull. 

I was hiding under a pavilion with Sawyer strapped to my back, because, cold + rain = stupid.

On our way home, in Apalachicola, Willy Sr asked that we stop at a Marine Antique shop which was awesome. We picked up our first taxidermy while we were there! Nothing says family vacation like taxidermy. We are now the proud owners of a taxidermied alligator skull and crab. We also got a shark jaw, which, according to Tilly is "probably a Mako sharks jaw, you can tell by the structure of the teeth" (She's 5 ya'll - shes not messing around when she says she wants to study shark teeth when she grows up).

My marine Biologist

And also my only child dedicated enough to the ocean to fish in the cold, over multiple days in an attempt to catch a shark.

Sawyers first artic expedition

In all after gas, taxadermy, eating out on the way there and back and other odds and ends we still have a remaining $49. I am not including the cost of getting my car detailed/vacuumed out because, lets be real, I could have done that myself but I'm just lazy. The kids requested that we put that money towards our next trip so we have even more money to spend next time. I was really impressed with each purchase that we made how cognizant each of them was about our budget. After each purchase we made, everyone would ask how much do we have left. They really did a great job planning, facilitating and staying in charge of the entire vacation and we all want to do it again! Plus, now that they are all adopted and we FINALLY have passports, we can start our over-seas adventures.

Budget planning committee starts NOW! But not literally since, it's 1am.

They are all smiling in the picture but as soon as the flash went off I started yelling at them to go to sleep.

Willy Sr. really, REALLY wanted that shark