DAY 6 (CLEARWATER BEACH)

CLEARWATER BEACH

This was a bit of an afterthought. I had already made plans to spend our Saturday at Daytona Beach. About 2 weeks before we left for our trip, one of my residents mentioned that she used to live in Clearwater and that it was a beautiful beach and she thought I needed to take the kids because Kate was excited about collecting sea shells!

We slept in a bit on Saturday as we had not really had a chance to do that. I had been in DUMBO OR DIE mode all week and it was kinda nice to slow down. We hit the Sizzler buffet for breakfast. It was really really good and not too much on the expensive side. Actually we hit the Sizzler several times within our stay. I am a steak kinda person and they had a HUGE buffet. My family LOVES a good buffet!

We got to the beach around 11 or 12. It was SUPER hot. People were EVERYWHERE and I mean EVERYWHERE!!!! We couldn't find a parking spot to save our lives!!!! We ended up parking about a mile down the strip, paying $20 and walking in the blazing heat AGAIN!!!! Once we got there, it was worth it. It was so nice to finally be able to put my feet in the white sand after longing for this my entire life. My only complaint? It was hard to walk very far in. It would be excellent exercise if that was what I was aiming for (IT WAS NOT!!!). We were able to find an umbrella and 2 chairs fairly immediately. (We had to pay for those too!) We unloaded rather quickly....I took lots of pics and the kids were on there way. They had been out in the water about 30 minutes when they decided they needed these neat rafts like everyone else had.
Then they did!
Kinda surprised they didn't get the same one as they are usually so competitive.

Now they were having fun!
This is one of my favorite beach photos. Kate was packing up sand for Grams and I was trying different settings with my camera.
Dean wanted Andy to take this pic before we packed up our stuff to leave. Hopefully next year, I will have lost 30 pounds!
We went and ate @ Frenchy's before we left town. It was across the street from the beach, and we parked illegally to get there. They had ZERO parking space. It was an awesome place to eat though and I would definitely go back. Everyone loved it and I loved the whole beach setting!
Andy talked Dean into letting him jump on the trampoline. He was able to get pretty high and he thought he was bungee jumping!!!! LOLL

Kate loved to sit in the sand and dig out the sea shells. They were everywhere. When we were actually IN the Gulf, we could feel the shells at the bottom of the water. This pic was taken with my new Canon camera set on color accent (my favorite setting!!!). No other alterations were made.
Just a layout I did using Laura Burger's cool blue papers from her new With Nature kit. Available at ACOT! I LOVE LOVE LOVE how this turned out. I feel a bit accomplished this week having learned a new trick in PSP on placement of pics in a template without making my edges jaggy. I am sooooooooooo PSYCHED!!!!! Thank you to all of the girls at DST for helping me out!

Making these layouts makes me want to go back sooooooooo bad! Dean and I had talked about going back in October of this year but as time goes by...it seems inevitable that we will NOT be going back this year due to the construction of our new house. It really is more practical to build our house into our "dream house" and this way, the next time we go (Oct 2009) we won't be so sad to leave our pool house and come home, because we will have a nice home waiting for us upon our return!!!
Lastly, I made this wallpaper for my computer just moments ago. Fairly happy with the results. Most of the products are from Natali's Countryside kit and Jofia's Sea oh Sea kit. (My two very favorite designers...I have many!!!)

Oh Oh Oh...another great thing happened to me this week. I had sent in an application for Karah Fredrick's CT Call. (The alpha I used was from her Thing Called Spring Kit (LOVE LOVE LOVE IT) Of course I didn't make it (there are far better scrappers than myself and Karah is like a GOD) I did however receive a $10.00 gift certificate to Blue Flombigo from Karah! I was able to get 4 NEW ALPHAS!!!! (I am kind of an alpha freak!!!)