Key West Vacation Part 1

Our annual trip to Key West was a great one this year! I think we all had the most fun we have ever had since we started going. As the boys get older, vacations definitely get better and better!

Almost immediately after we arrived, we come across a mother hen and her baby chicks. There are wild chickens and roosters all over the Keys, so we are used to seeing them but this was our first time seeing babies. James was determined that he would be able to catch one, but the wild chickens are much craftier than our pet chickens :)

Rett being silly and not letting me get a picture of him:

There was a lot of lego building when we weren't in the water fishing or lobstering:

We had to go check out the big iguanas on the rocks again. This year Anthony and James were determined that they were going to catch an iguana. Anthony almost caught one last year and the goal was to catch a baby this year so that we could tame it at home.

Iguana hunting:

James found a coconut and wanted to open it up and try the water inside. It had a strange, but interesting taste.

For the first few days of our vacation, the office to get visitor passes to get on and off the navy base (where our vacation rental is) was closed so after our friends got us through the gate with his military ID we had to stay put. So we did a lot of lobstering and fishing on base! This year every single time Anthony went out lobstering (except for one time when they went far away) James wanted to go with him, so I took him swimming by the shore while we watched them diving down. James had a snorkel to try in the water but he couldn't get the fit right and kept getting water in. He tried though!

Whenever they brought the lobsters back in, James would grab Anthony's lobster noose and practice grabbing them with it. Got to get those skills perfected!

While we were off fishing and lobstering, Rett got a lot of one on one time with Grandma. He didn't mind it one bit!

We had already gone in the water early in the morning and taken a shower but the grown-ups were going back in and James was dyyyyying to go back. I told him I would stay with him and we would watch them from the shore...which turned into James playing the water with his regular clothes on until sunset. Here is James handing Anthony his flippers:

Anthony came up with a lobster to show James:

Beautiful view!

That night after a second shower and change of clothes, he finally collapsed into bed. We finally wore him out!

Since we couldn't really leave the base, we didn't have access to a grocery store right away. I was dying for some real food! So Anthony and I went night fishing while the boys were asleep and cooked them up for a late dinner:

We didn't do many touristy things in downtown Key West this year, but we did tour a battleship and the boys rode the trolley with my mom while Anthony and I ate lunch. This was a big cruise ship we could see from the deck of the battleship. The boys said, "We should go on a cruise!"

While we were waiting for the trolley to arrive, Anthony and James tried to dig up worms to lure this wild chicken to them. It got pretty close! (It is the small black thing in front of them)

While we were swimming at the shore during another lobstering excursion, some men walked over to warn me about a crocodile they saw swimming nearby. James and I got out and sure enough, there he was poking his head out a few hundred feet away. I told the lobstering crew but they were too focused on catching lobster. They said to let them know if he starts to swim towards them and they went back to what they were doing! I had no idea crocodiles were in the Keys, but apparently it is a real problem!

Another trips catch:

James and Anthony went out exploring one afternoon and cast netted a big iguana. Anthony didn't want to keep it and take it home, he just wanted to have it on our back porch for awhile.

He stayed for a few minutes until he found a drainage hole he could fit in, then he was gone!

The same afternoon, Anthony found an injured sandpiper (water bird) by the shoreline. He and James caught it and put in a bucket to take to a nearby wildlife rehab. The plan was to go there after lobstering, but when we came back the bird was dead :( Anthony was so upset that it died, and he felt really bad that we didn't just take it right away.

The next morning as my mom and I were walking back from breakfast I noticed a mockingbird flapping around on the ground, clearly injured! What are the odds!!!! I knew how bad Anthony felt about the other bird dying and not being able to save it, so I picked it up and brought it inside. Anthony's face was priceless when he saw what I had in my hand! He was so shocked that we found two injured birds in two days. This time we were taking it straight to the rescue!

James holding the bird:

The man at the rescue said that it was a male mockingbird that probably got stunned flying into a window and that he should make a full recovery. He gave us some tortoise food for their pond and showed us where we could look around at their facility.

Apparently the chickens love tortoise food because once they saw we had some, they would not leave us alone!

Can you see the iguana in the tree? We walked underneath the tree and saw all the poop on the ground, so we knew an iguana must be in there somewhere :)

We spent a day at Bahia Honda state park snorkeling with the entire family this time. 

The view from the old bridge: