Florida Tourists: Orlando

Orlando was our final stop on our Florida Tourists trip.  While we were in Florida, I really wanted to take the kids to a natural spring.  We didn’t have time to detour to Ginny Springs, a favorite of mine during college, so Aunt Jacqui was happy to help us find one close to them to check this off our tourist list.  We went to Wekiwa Springs near their house.  It was fuh-reezing—or refreshing, I guess, because it was a hot summer’s day—but all of the kids jumped right in, the 2 1/2 year olds included!  Harper and Hudson are so open to every new experience.  They are just joys to be be around. 

Nana and PopPop joined us on our second day at Jacqui and Randy’s house.  We had all come together to celebrate Uncle Randy’s 40th birthday!  We enjoyed a delicious shrimp boil meal and some birthday cake at home and then the kids stayed at home while Aunt Jacqui, Uncle Randy, Nana, PopPop and I all went to a brewery to meet many of Jacqui and Randy’s friends to help him celebrate the milestone birthday.  Unbeknownst to Jacqui when she booked the brewery for Randy’s party, a special live performance of Rocky Horror Picture Show was at the brewery that night, too.  We got quite the hoot out of that, and luckily none of us were asked to join the show.  Happy birthday, Uncle Randy!

After nearly two weeks away, several new Florida sights seen, and many family members hugged, we headed back home.  We had a great trip as Florida tourists.

{happy 40th to uncle randy!  and, fidget spinner fun with the grandparents.}

Florida Tourists: Busch Gardens

We dropped Jonathan off to fly home from the Fort Myers airport and Ella, Jack, and I continued on to our next stop on our Florida Tourists trip, Nonni and Papa’s house just north of Bradenton.  After we rolled in to my parents’ house, Tropical Storm Emily joined us, pounding the area with hours and hours of rain and wind.  The power went out for most of the day, so we hunkered down and enjoyed playing games and doing art with Nonni.  It was some welcome downtime and time well spent with Nonni and Papa.  The weather did clear in time for a day at Busch Gardens to celebrate Jack’s birthday.  Thanks, Nonni and Papa, for a fun time at Busch Gardens!  Apparently, I only took pictures on the big camera at Busch Gardens while we were at my parents’ house—and only a few of those—but there’s more to come on the August Instagram post to come.  We celebrated Jack’s 12th birthday while there, swam, tried out Jack’s birthday presents, played a little tennis, and enjoyed lots of time with my parents. 

The day after Jack’s birthday, Ella, Jack, and I headed to Orlando.  Before making our way to Aunt Jacqui and Uncle Randy’s house, we made a stop at the newest attraction in Orlando, the USTA National Campus, where I had reserved time on a clay court for a few hours of play.  We had a great time playing and it felt very special to hit some balls where a lot of the American ATP and WTA players train.  It’s a great facility—I can’t wait to go back for a camp some day!  And, after a stop at the outlet malls (another Orlando attraction—hello Lululemon Outlet), we made our way to Aunt Jacqui and Uncle Randy’s house.

Florida Tourists: Marco Island

We spent the weekend at the JW Marriott Marco Island Beach Resort.  The clear waters of the Gulf Coast and the beach were beautiful, but this hotel was plush.  It had the feel of a Caribbean beach resort with several restaurants, shops, pools, and activities onsite and we really had no need to leave the hotel grounds while on Marco Island.  We had enjoyed lunch at a local fish shop on our way in to town, but, until we checked out on Sunday morning, we enjoyed all of the amenities of the resort.  I especially enjoyed the poolside bar.  For this part of the trip, we were Florida beach tourists.  It was lovely.  And it was a wonderful little vacation for just the four of us in the middle of our busy vacation. 

{ella left her bathing suits at aunt chrissy’s house, so we had to stop at a marshall’s outside of naples.  it was slim pickings so she ended up with a neon chevron rainbow one piece with pink netted sides.  that seemed like punishment enough to cover the costs of shipping her bathing suits to nonni and papa’s house (our next stop).  and, yes, this is a series of photos of ella tripping and falling.  classic ella.  gotta’ love her.}

Florida Tourists: The Everglades

After our visit in Ft. Lauderdale, we were headed to the Gulf Coast.  We were going to cut across Florida through the Everglades, so, what do Florida tourists do in the Everglades?? Take an airboat ride, of course!  Aunt Chrissy, Noah, and Emilee joined us on our mid-morning airboat tour.  The ride was beautiful; however, apparently it was too hot for any wildlife to be out.  The only alligators we saw were the ones in captivity at the Everglades Safari Park. 

After our airboat ride, we said our goodbyes to Aunt Chrissy, Noah, and Emilee and then continued west for our next stop, Marco Island.

{a dragonfly landed on me right before the airboat took off at top speed—then he held on for dear life the rest of the ride!}

{a little frog landed on jonathan.}

Florida Tourists: Ft. Lauderdale

Jonathan flew in to meet us in Ft. Lauderdale so all four of us had the chance to visit with Aunt Chrissy and cousins Noah and Emilee.  We missed Uncle Chris and Jacob, but at least we got to see them over spring break.  Chrissy took us to her aunt’s condo in downtown Ft. Lauderdale where we got to enjoy the rooftop pool.  What a beautiful view of the beach and all of the canals in the downtown area and boy did we feel like high rollers.  Afterwards, we walked along Riverwalk by the Tarpon River and admired the ginormous yachts docked along the river, chased some iguanas (they’re everywhere), and had a picnic lunch in a park.  Thanks, Aunt Chrissy, for showing us around Ft. Lauderdale!

Florida Tourists: Cocoa Beach/Kennedy Space Center

I lived in Florida for nearly a quarter of my life (preschool/kindergarten and then again in college), I’ve vacationed in Florida plenty of times (Key West, Disney, etc.), and Ella, Jack, and I have spent many weeks visiting family in St. Augustine, Gainesville, Bradenton, and Orlando.  Yet, there are so many top Florida tourist attractions and experiences that I have not seen.  We had decided not to plan a big trip over the Christmas holidays (like we’d done for the previous three years), so I decided to incorporate a trip we had been meaning to make to visit family all over Florida (Ft. Lauderdale being the main goal because we had yet to make it down to Chris and Chrissy’s house) with also hitting a lot of the big sights around Florida.  I even did nearly my usual amount of research I do leading up to our big trips.  Even though we have spent so much time in Florida through the years, we called this trip our #floridatourists trip and we had a wonderful time doing as many uniquely Florida activities that we could fit in.  We first drove down the east coast of Florida, stopping at Cocoa Beach and then Chris and Chrissy’s house near Ft. Lauderdale (Jonathan joined us for this part of the trip), drove through the Everglades to the Gulf Coast and stayed on Marco Island for a weekend.  After dropping Jonathan off at the Fort Myers airport, we headed to Parrish (near Bradenton) for a few days at Casa de Slaton (my parents’ house) and then finished our trip in Orlando with Jacqui and Randy.  I loved seeing so much of our family and enjoying so many new Florida experiences with Ella and Jack—and we’re glad Jonathan got to fly in to spend some of it with us, too (once I told him I wanted to reserve a few nights at a Marriott resort on Marco Island, he made it happen).

So, the first day of our trip, Ella, Jack, and I drove down to a beachfront hotel on Cocoa Beach.  We had all seen those Ron Jon Surf Shop billboards scattered up and down I-95 for years, yet we had never been to Cocoa Beach (not even in college for me).  We drove down A1A, checked out the surf shops, took a few walks on the beach, spent time at the hotel pool, and then ate dinner at the hotel tikki bar where Jack enjoyed his first virgin strawberry daiquiri.  We were officially Florida tourists. 

The next morning we were up early to head up to Titusville, Florida to visit the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral.  It was awesome!  I had no idea how much we would enjoy exploring this facility.  The Atlantis exhibit was by far our favorite and we spent most of our day there.  A bus ride also took us around the grounds where we saw the tallest one-story building (the Vehical Assembly Building, where they build and work on the space shuttles/rockets), the SpaceX launch pads, some manatee, and then stopped at the Apollo / Saturn V Center to learn about the early history of the space program. 

Once we had gotten our fill of the Kennedy Space Center, we headed south on I-95 to make our way to South Florida by early evening for our first visit to Chris and Chrissy’s house.  Unfortunately the timing worked out that we were only able to see Aunt Chrissy, Noah, and Emilee as Jacob and Uncle Chris were out of town, but it was nice to have the quality time with these three.  I picked Jonathan up at the Ft. Lauderdale airport that night so he could join us for a long weekend of our trip (he flew directly from some work travel). 

{they’re touching a moon rock (jack’s pretty excited).}

Instagrammin’ in July

July is full throttle summer!

i finally got to try out a grass tennis court, with tennis friend yvette. | jack’s eagles camp team won the championship game. | ella loves teen art camp. | jack and noah week | aaaaahhh—kicking off hhi week right at hudson’s | i was pretty quiet on instagram during hhi week this year—beach, biking, cousins, mamma mia, and donuts (you know, the highlights). | ella, jack and i traveled around florida for the last week of july and the first week of august, acting like florida tourists and visiting family.  | first stop, cocoa beach | vacation means tikki bars and virgin daiquiris. | evening walk on the beach | three musketeers at the start of our florida trip | florida trip day 2, we visited kennedy space center. | kennedy space center was amazing—definitely recommend! | next stop on our florida tourists trip, ft. lauderdale to visit aunt chrissy, noah, and emilee (uncle chris and jacob were away at a camp in georgia). | we enjoyed a ft. lauderdale rooftop pool. | and picked up jonathan while we were in town. | on our way out of town, aunt chrissy, noah, and emilee joined us on airboat ride through the everglades (too hot for alligators apparently). | a drive through the everglades—panther crossing | next stop, resort life for just the 4 of us on marco island on the southwest coast of florida. | after the living the high life there for a long weekend, we dropped jonathan off at an airport and headed to nonni and papa’s house (mexican train wreck). | nonni and papa’s house is like a resort, too.