At The Cottage

We stayed in the cottages at Gulf State Park...the same ones as last year. They are new and nice and on a lake, so it's like having two vacations in one. The cottages have lots of space for playing outside, and the kiddos were more than happy to take advantage of that.

Levi made up his own game called "Bingo Golf".

You line up your sticks, pick up your "golf club", and yell "Bingo!" every time you hit a stick.

And, then you start over....of course.

Stephan and my dad took the big kids fishing at the pier a couple of times.

They both enjoyed it and came back with the kind of fishing stories where the fish grows in size with each telling.

It turns out that Levi loves to fish, but not for the reason you might think. The actual act of fishing pales in comparison to . . . care to take a guess?

Fish inspection.
The boy seriously loves to just look at the fish...in a very hands on sort of way.

While they were fishing they met "Sam", the pier pelican. They even got to pet him.

I'm pretty sure that Sam was Sophia's favorite part.

On one afternoon, we hit up the docks for some fresh shrimp and crabs.

Then our chef cooked up some pretty fabulous dishes. I am one spoiled lady. Stephan is excellent in the kitchen.

If it was just us grown ups we'd likely opt for just shrimp and maybe some oysters.

But, Levi insists on crabs. After everyone was long finished with supper, he was still sitting at the table investigating every last crevice of the final remaining uncracked crab. Can you tell he likes science?

Just to prove that I was indeed on this vacation...

More pictures to come tomorrow. Ha! You didn't think this was it did you? ;)