Happy Birthday America!!

This nation will remain the land of the Free only so long as it is the home of the Brave. ~Elmer Davis

Let me begin where I left off! Yesterday we had to take Brad to the airport to catch a flight around 2:00, besides the fact that Jess was going to miss him, we were sending him off the VA, where hurricane Arthur was headed! We were afraid he would get stuck in Atlanta and not make it home! All went well, even with delays and he made it home safe and sound! No excitement for him!!

Jess didn't want to leave until she found out if Brad made it home okay so I snuck out alone after dinner to the lighthouse for some mini shelling! 

The tide was very high, so I didn't expect much!

 The algae, or sea grass was all over the place!!

There were lots of shells, but just plain white small shells...nothing spectacular!

I did pick up a baby's ear and a shark's eye and one tiny wentletrap....(I will post pictures in my next post.)

There were boats and jet skis everywhere, you can certainly tell it is a holiday weekend! There were several dolphin just off of the fishing pier that were frolicking and playing in the rough water from all the activity, and I did get a pic...

I stayed at Lighthouse point until just about dark, and headed back.

We got up and headed out first thing this morning in order to get a front row seat for the Sanibel 4th of July parade...

 We were impressed! We are from a small town and kind of expected a small town short parade, but it lasted nearly an hour and was a lot of fun! They not only threw out the traditional candy, among other things were cold ice bottles, cold sunblock, car flags, and even bananas....tell me that doesn't sound like a tropical island! We had a great time! We decided to head home for some lunch and made a plan to go shell at Bunche Beach after dinner and stay to see if we could see the fireworks at both Sanibel and Fort Myers Beach..

We saw or buddies, king's crowns by the bunches.... :)

I circled the ones I could remember....and probably missed some! We are pleased that there are so many of these beauties!

We also ran across this bright pink sand in several places along the sand bars...does anyone have any idea why that is?

We saw some more awesome live shells...a LIVE shark's eye...

...and a tiny Nassa...

Although the shelling wasn't great, we saw some awesome colors and another beautiful sunset!

We plopped down on the sandbar and waited for it to get dark to see if we could catch both Sanibel and Ft. Myers Beach fireworks....Jess made her first "sandcastle" in years! :)

Our idea was great we got to see fireworks at both places, and a few others!! It was great!! Sanibel had great fireworks, ...

and as soon as their grand finale was over Fort Myers Beach began their display....every where we looked was fireworks! It was a blast....pardon the pun!

 Check out the Smiley face at Fort Myer's beach!!

 I hope you all had a great Independence Day! Tomorrow will be our last day :( Not sure what adventure we will have yet, (other than packing) but you will be the first to know!! Stay tuned one more day!

::Hugs::

Cheri