Florida!!

After spending two nights with Grandma and Grandpa, we headed out to Tampa to finally see my parents! It was a long, rough day of driving and we did not get in until 10 minute before midnight, but we made it! I thank everyone for their prayers. I felt them that day too. It's so cool to just be able to know in your spirit that people are praying for you.

After a good night's sleep, we headed out to the grocery store to stock up on food. My parents (Tee Tee and Pee Pop to my kids) took us to special grocery store that has a lot of organic, gluten free, and weird hippie foods like we like to eat. :) The highlight of that trip for the kids was the shopping cart escalator. The grocery store has a parking garage attached to it and if you park upstairs, you can use the escalators to enter and exit the store. There is a special escalator just for shopping carts. We had never seen one before, so they thought that was pretty cool.

Here are some other highlights from our trip:

We went to visit a big sundial in St. Petersburg at a new shopping center. They had never seen one so this was also a good opportunity to teach them a little about how people used to tell time and talk about the sun's shadow. There was a cupcake shop around the corner that had gluten free cupcakes, so Tee Tee (my mom) treated us to cupcakes afterwards. For kids who can't normally do stuff like that, a trip to a cupcake shop is a very big deal.

The Sundial

We enjoyed swimming in mom and dad's pool a couple times. The kids had really been looking forward to doing this. It was a little chillier in the water than we would have preferred, but it was not too cold to swim. We also got to swim in Uncle Sean and Aunt Jill's pool. The kids had so much fun with my brother in the pool. They were calling him Mr. Riptide and trying to shoot him with water guns while trying to keep from getting caught by him.

The beach!!! We got to visit a couple of beaches while we were in FL. We love the beach and miss it terribly, so this is something we had all been very excited to do. The water was clearer than what the kids have been used to in the Outer Banks of NC, so they were enjoying putting their faces in the water and seeing the fish. There had been 7 sting ray attacks at one of the beaches on the day we came, but thankfully we did not run into any rays.

Another highlight was a visit over to the aquarium in Clearwater to meet Winter and Hope the dolphins from A Dolphin's Tale and A Dolphin's Tale 2. We had seen the first movie and they remembered the story. It was cool to go see Winter. She was not wearing her tail while we were there, but they brought it out for us to see and touch. It was fun to learn about some differences between what was in the movie that wasn't exactly what happened in real life. We got to see the trainers interact with both dolphins and Hope did several tricks for us. While there, we also got to see some other marine life. The kids touched a sea urchin and checked out some sharks and turtles. There was a sting ray petting area downstairs, so all the boys had their first experience touching a ray. Hannah decided to pass this time!

Winter

Hope doing tricks for us

Sea Urchin

We also enjoyed going to a pizza place with my parents that offers dairy and gluten free pizza that actually tastes good. There was a place like this in VA, but there isn't a lot of demand for that here, so we have no pizza place to go to here that won't cause us negative side effects afterwards. It was nice to be able to do something as simple as going out for pizza that other families take for granted.

We headed down to Ft. Myers one day and met up with my uncle, aunt, my cousin, and my cousin's daughter. It was nice to catch up with them. We went to the beach first and then went to dinner.

We got to spend most of one weekend with my brother and sister in law. I miss my brother and don't get to see him or Jill very often, so this was something I had really been looking forward to. It was good to catch up with them and just spend time with them. Of course, I love it when the kids get to spend more time with their aunts and uncles too and make memories. They took us to a nature preserve near their house for a nature walk. We saw alligators (or were they crocs??), armadillos, cranes, a variety of birds, turtles, and two American bald eagles. I had never seen the eagles before, so that was pretty cool. We went to my brother's church the Sunday we were there. He leads worship at his church and I wanted to come see him as a worship leader. I was glad for that opportunity. My brother owns a boat and he and Jill enjoy going out on it often. He took my kids for their first motor boat ride, which they enjoyed very much. We even saw a dolphin jump out of the water.

Can you spot the gator?

Adorable!!

My parents hosted a cookout one Saturday that my brother and sister in law attended, along with an uncle and aunt I had not seen in a long time. It was really great to be able to see so many family members on this trip (on my side and on John's side). My aunt got down on the floor and played with kids, so they enjoyed having her attention while the other adults visited with each other.

My parents got a new Wii game for the kids to play on days we weren't going anywhere. It was a really fun game and they enjoyed it a lot. I loved it because it made them exercise to play. It was called Outdoor Challenge.

The kids enjoyed watching Wheel of Fortune with my parents in the evenings. My parents had introduced them to that show awhile back when they were watching them for me. Nathanael really got hooked and I had to download the Wheel of Fortune app onto the Kindle for them. He also has a WOF activity book he uses on road trips. I love the big, fun things we do with my parents, but I also enjoy these simple things that will be fond memories for my kids when they are grown.

We enjoyed a few special visits that weren't originally planned when we decided to take this trip. It turns out that one of John's cousins lives only two miles from my parents. I had seen her a few times before, but I have not had very much interaction with her (due to distance). I knew she and her family were living in FL, but I had no idea where. When my MIL (mother in law) connected her and I, we were surprised to learn how close she was to my parents. So we were able to meet them at the park one morning for a playdate and get to know them better. My kids only have one cousin their age, so I'm always glad when they get to spend some time with John's cousins' kids. The other special visit we had was with with a lady whom I had not gotten to meet yet, but who had been a huge blessing to me. I will tell more about this in the next post.

Cousins!

What else? We packed so much into a short time. I hope I didn't forget anything! Looking back, I took a lot of pictures of things we did, but not of my kids with my parents. Doh! Wish I had taken a few of those! Guess we will have to go back!! :) We had so much fun with my parents that we did not want to leave! However, we were really missing our daddy by this point and he was missing us. We had been away from him for longer than ever before and now it was time to go home. But not without one more surprise visit (that I will tell about in the next post).