Trip to the Sunshine State

Notice in the title I didn't mention anything about temperature.  Yes, on our trip to Florida we had some GREAT sunshine, warm temperatures on the other hand, not so much.  Despite the fridged for Florida temps, we had a wonderful vacation down in Fort Myers to visit Grandma and Grandpa B and see their new house and to visit with Aunt Lee, Uncle Bob, Elsa and Claire.  This was both of the kids' first "real" trip and we loved every barely luke warm second of it. 

Here are the kids in the airport, pretty happy for 5am.  Carter was so excited to get on his first plane ride, he didn't care what time of day it was.

Yes, we let Carter push all the buttons he could find EXCEPT the red one.

The first thing you want to do when you get to Florida is throw on your bathing suit and head for the pool.  Especially when you're coming from Michigan in January.  Grandma and Grandpa live in a great golf/tennis community with not only their own private pool, but also a pool and hot tub off the main club house.  So we did what any Michigan tourist would do, we threw on our suits and headed for the pool.  The good news was that the public pool area was completely empty, we had the place to ourselves!  The bad news was that the pool temp was about like Lake Michigan's temp this time of year. 

Gorgeous from a distance

So we opted for the "hot pool" as Carter called it.  Again, we had the place to ourselves, nobody who lived in Florida was crazy enough to put on a bathing suit I guess.

Carter enjoyed his first Harley ride with Grandpa on the way home from the hot pool. 

Don and Dave enjoyed a few rounds of golf on their beautiful golf course.  Their house backs up to the 3rd tee, so us non-golfers ran out to see them when we saw their cart headed our way.

Nice swing!

Grandma and Mia enjoying the sunshine.

On day two of our stay, Uncle Bob, Aunt Lee, Elsa, and Claire arrived!  Carter was SO excited to play with Elsa and see baby Claire.  We had so much fun hanging out with everyone for a lazy week of playing with the kids, celebrating a late Christmas, and eating what seemed like an endless buffet of snacks and meals.

Here we are celebrating Christmas.  The kids had so many toys to play with afterwards they didn't know what to do with themselves.  Thank you for all the wonderful gifts everyone!!

Mia is reading to her new Andy, homemade by Grandma B.  Ann was so happy to see him when we got home!

Other fun things:  the kids did a lot of coloring and drawing, we visted the manatees and a cool playground, we played around Grandpa and Grandma's pool a lot, we went for fun walks in the neighborhood, and we played with a lot of lincoln logs and puzzles.  

Claire is always full of smiles!

Fun in Grandma's big tub.

Carter and Elsa especially loved to throw Grandpa's balls into the pool and watch him fish them back out with the skimmer.

Visiting the manatees...

Claire is showing her enthusiasm after spotting a manatee.

Croc attack!

More hot pool fun with Elsa and Uncle Bob

 

One of the highlights of the manatee park was when Grandpa bought Carter and Elsa some adorable stuffed manatees.  Carter named his Frank and Elsa named her's Spot.  Here are Frank and Spot on this walk with us.

Dining by the pool

We were very sad to leave the sunshine state.  Chilly temps and all.  Next time we hope to actually get in their gorgeous pool and maybe even spot the neighborhood croc who apparently was hiding somewhere in the bogs due to the cold temps.  We want to send huge thank yous to Grandma and Grandpa for putting up with us and all our gear.  We miss everyone!!