Just the 5 of us: Key West Vacation Day 4

Nick woke up early on this morning and went on a snorkeling trip. He didn't take the camera with him so we don't have any pictures of that. He had a lot of fun. He saw a 5-6 ft nurse sharking sleeping in the water. A bit strange to see a shark in it's "natural" setting instead of in a aquarium. He also saw several intersting tropical fish. After snorkeling they went kayaking through the mangrove trees.

While he was gone I planned on taking the girls to the pool, but I got brave. :) So we headed out to see a Catholic church which is known for a Gratto built my a nun who said once the Gratto was finished the island would never be directly hit by a hurricane again.......and it hasn't.

The inside of the church

We walked around the outside or the church

The Gratto

We then went to the Key West cemetary and walked around. Very neat cemetary. Very old graves right next to new ones. Many of them are above ground because of the water level.

Navy Section

Just a shot of the a section of the cematary

Need Gravestone shaped like a tree trunk.

Next we were suppose to meet up with Nick before going to the beach but we had a little time to kill so we were just walking around downtown key west. Remeber it's just me and the 3 girls. We walked by the Light house which we had seen a few days earlier but didn't go inside. Sage started begging to go inside and see the lighthouse and climb up it. "Please mommy I want to climb the lighthouse". So for some unknown crazy "mommy of the year" moment I said sure and took all three girls to the lighthouse by myself.

The lighthouse

Getting ready to walk up. I strapped the baby to me in the sling, and up we went. Oh I also have to mention that it was about 95 degrees this day. The hottest day that we had so far, and there is no breeze inside a lighthouse. :)

View from the top. The girls LOVED it!

Self portrait of me and Capri.

We then headed down. I went first and Sage and Avery walked behind me. After a few minutes of going down I heard a "thump, thump" and turned around to see Sage hopping down the stairs....yes hopping. I said in my meanest mommy voice "we do not hop down stairs", and luckily she obeyed, and we made it to the bottom.

Yea! We did it. :) I've been in lots of lighthouses before, but never alone with 3 kids under the age of 5.

Now off to Zachary Taylor State Park and the Fort. Daddy meet up with us when we got out of the lighthouse.

The fort from the top.

Nick inside the fort.

Avery, Capri and I inside the fort. Sage was napping in the stroller.

Off to the beach! We rented snorkel gear and I got to do a bit of snorkeling around some rocks.

Avery playing in the sand.

Nick out snorkeling

View of the beach

Avery and Daddy walking on the beach. We tried to get her to snorkel but she wanted nothing to do with it.

Capri and I in the water

Sage woke up as we were getting ready to leave so I snapped her picture.

Notice the fan on the stroller. I just got a cheap $3 fan from walmart before we left, and hooked it to the stroller using a rubber band. That way as we were walking around Capri would have air blowing on her and not get to hot. We got SO many comments on how creative that was. Everywhere we went someone comment on the fan and the cute sleeping baby. :)

I had to snap this picture because this is what we did most of out trip........walked. We parked our car Monday and didn't get back in it until Friday. We walked a ton this day (probably 5-6 miles, including up the lighthouse) and the girls did so awesome. They didn't compain about walking or being hot. We just stopped and rest when we could. Capri rode in the stroller most of the time and just woke and slept as needed, getting out to eat or just get a few mintues of cuddle like when we were in A/C.
And finally the sunset. It had been cloudy a lot during our trip which was nice because it kept it cool. So the last night there we went down to Mallory Square to watch the sunset. Clouds started to roll in a bit, but they still let us get a nice view of the sunset.