Finishing Florida

I am so ready to finish! We took this vacation almost 2 months ago!! I want to remember everything so I am making myself finish.

Anyway, we went to Boca Grande on Monday. My grandparents had a house on Boca and I went a lot when I was growing up. It was fun to take the boys to the places I went as a kid. I hadn't been since I was 22, so it had been awhile and it brought back a lot of fun memories. We spent the day at the beach and the boys each found a shark tooth. Later we took them to Banyan St. a favorite from when I was little. This picture is not the best-

It's just a fun little street lined with banyan trees.

The boys had a blast climbing and sitting in the trees. After that, it was time for ice cream.  We had a lot of fun at Boca. It is a great little island- it has bike paths, a charming little town, great beach, and not crowded. I actually meant George Bush Sr. in church at Boca when he was president and I was visiting my grandparents for spring break.

It was back to the pool on Tuesday. It was hard to keep the boys out of the water! Later in the day, we took them to the jetty to watch the boats and fisherman. After that we went to downtown Venice and let them play in the water fountains.

Mom and I got to shop on Wednesday. Venice has a lot of fun stores downtown. The boys each picked a souvenir- Ty got a shark and Jake got a t-shirt. We spent the rest of the day at the pool.

Our last day was Thursday. We made it to the beach in the afternoon, and then went out to eat at a fun restaurant right on the water called Pop's. There is nothing better than eating right on the water watching the boats and birds. It kept the boys entertained.

We packed up on Friday to head home. We were going to get up and go in the morning, but thought traffic might be bad so we waited until around 2:30 to leave. We got stuck in some traffic in Florida because of construction. The worst was outside Atlanta because of more construction. We went 2 miles and it took us 3 hours. The boys were still up and it was 11:00pm. David was getting frustrated. The computer battery was already used up so we had no movies. We kept seeing minivans with the flip down DVD players and David and I agreed our next van, we are getting a DVD player in it! I am really impressed though that we did make it home without letting the boys watch movies. We drove straight through the night and still had a big stretch the next day, and no way to charge the computer. They entertained themselves, the same way I did when I was little and there were no tv's in cars! I think we fianlly arrived at 4:00 the next day. It was good to be home! It was a great trip and I loved taking the boys to the beach. Especially Tyler who had never been. We are grateful to my mom and Bob who gave us the opportunity to take the boys on vacation. We have many memories we will never forget.

Finally Florida

So now that we have been home now for over a month, it's time to finally write about Florida. We drove down for Spring Break and meant my mom and her hubby in Venice, where she rented a condo for the month. I was so nervous about driving. At this point, we had a terrible drive to Colorado at Christmas, and a terrible flight to Arizona in February. Something had to go wrong. We left a few days early to beat some traffic and extend our vacation a tad. So we got up bright and early Wednesday morning and drove to Chattanooga, Tennessee. We had an easy drive and the kids did wonderful. We brought our laptop and wedged it between the driver and passenger seat arm rests. The battery only lasts 2 hours so we let them watch a little at a time. The rest of the time they had snacks, played Leapster, colored on ColorWonder paper, listened to books on tape, or took naps. David was in charge of making the hotel reservations before we left, and he chose a Super 8. Really? A Super 8? It was what you would expect for $50. Not so super. We had dinner and let the kids swim in the pool.

The next day we only had to go through Georgia and Florida, but it seemed to take forever. I think we made it to Venice at 4 or 5. I'm glad we drove though, the kids got to see a lot and loved going through each new state. I think it helped Jake understand how big the US is knowing it took us 2 days to get to Florida when he looks at his map on the wall.

We spent a majority of the rest of our vacay at either the beach or the pool. The kids spent hours swimming. It was so fun to watch Jake. He went from learning how to paddle around with no water wings in Arizona to doing cannon balls in Florida.

On Friday, we took the kids to the Mote Marine Aquarium in Sarasota. We thought about doing Disney or Busch Gardens, but I wasn't up for big crowds and a lot of hassle. It was perfect. There weren't many people there, and they had a lot of hands on exhibits. Stingray with barb removed

Panning for sharks teeth

    Mr. Sea Turtle

 Dolphin doing tricks
We all really enjoyed the aquarium. On the way home, we found a cute restaurant right on the water and had a great lunch.

 Mom and Bob at cute restaurant

On Saturday, Venice held an Easter egg hunt in a park downtown. The boys have never really done a hunt besides our own so we thought we would give it a try. For some reason, I really thought it would be a hunt but no, they roped off an area, and dumped some eggs. There were quite a few kids there so I guess I can see why they do it this way. Tyler was pumped. He is usually my shy guy, but he wanted some eggs and was ready to gather. Did I bring my video camera? No. It was hilarious to watch him. He was in the 0-3 age group so he had the advantage understanding and knowing what to do. They announced it was time to start and he was off, collecting those eggs as fast as he could. There was no stopping him. He was on an egg mission. It was so nice to see Tyler come out of his shell- (that one is for you, Bob). Jake was in the 5-7 age group and those kids were fast. He had a harder time finding as many as Tyler, but he did find the "golden" egg and won a stuffed Pat the Bunny. That night we went to another fun restaurant right on the water. I had some great fish. Normally I don't care to much for fish, but I was craving it while we were on vacay. I had it every time we went out to eat. A pelican pooped on my shoulder while we were having dinner. This is all part of eating by the water. You take the good with the bad.

Easter was on Sunday and the kids dyed eggs in the morning. Then we spent the rest of the day at the pool.

We had a yummy Easter dinner of salmon. Tyler said the prayer for Easter dinner:

"Thank-you for this lovely Easter day and Jake, Nana, Grandpa Bob, Mom, and Dad." (Repeat again.) Yes, he really said lovely. Too cute.

I'm going to finish the rest tomorrow. It's getting late and really long.