Summer is always a fun busy time for us with lots of activity which means there's lots to share here on the blog. And, this summer is no different. I'm finding myself trying to quickly get in the posts from our June adventures before we embark on our big trip of the year - a round-trip to Yellowstone! But, I'll have plenty more to share on that here soon....for now, our trip to Florida!
15 ish months after we all found ourselves shuttered into our houses the girls and I set out on our first post-pandemic flight to Florida to hang out with Ryan for a few days. He's been traveling nearly every week for almost 2 years working on building Restoration Hardware storefronts and while he's been traveling to places like Columbus, Charlotte, Dallas, San Francisco and a few random cities in between, Jacksonville felt like the first time it made sense for us to come and visit him. School ended the day before and the girls and I kicked off summer vacation with a 4 day trip to visit him.
The accommodations were perfect for our family of four. While most of the time the guys have been staying in regular old hotel rooms, figuring out how to piece together meals during the pandemic without full kitchens (or with access to the entire hotel kitchen...that sounded crazy!), in Jacksonville Ryan had a two bedroom condo with 2 bathrooms, a full kitchen, a community pool/game room etc. It was the prefect place for us to join him! Oh, and! How could I forget? It was just a few minutes from the ocean!
I mean - the ocean!! Sand dunes, boogie boards, boardwalks....alligator bites, sand in our hair (everywhere), reading on the beach...the sound of the waves, the whole thing. I said it in an earlier post how I'd convinced myself I might not see the ocean again, and feeling like you can't do something makes you want to do that thing SO MUCH more...and appreciate it more when you do. That is 100% the lesson here!
It really was the perfect getaway. I was pretty sure the kids and I would be fine flying alone and I was right on that! We had delays on both flights but the excitement of travel and the iPads helped power them through. We were tried by the time we got home on Monday - we drove directly from the airport to get the dog at the kennel, stopped to pick up groceries and finally made it home around 8...I was pooped and they were too, but that's what summer is all about!
On Saturday we visited Amelia island, about an hour drive from where we were staying and we're so glad we did. While there we stopped at two different beaches, both very different, had a stop at Walmart to grab a cooler, boogie boards, sand toys and a small umbrella for me (oh, and a 6 pack of beer and snacks!). We ate at a restaurant called the Salty Penguin (go there if you're ever on the island!). I ordered myself a pound of peel and eat shrimp and it might have been the best decision I made all weekend. Well, also my new sunglasses. Those rank pretty high as well!
The kids both tried to boogie board. Abby liked it better than Hazel but they both did it. Hazels favorite thing to do in the ocean was to jump the waves, and to pile sand all over herself like she's doing here in this picture. She'll learn!
Oh! And the milkshake! How could I forget this. I think the kids will remember the Salty Penguin. It'll be the memory of the first time they ate alligator and the biggest milkshake of their lives. We saw another table get bloody mary's in these big cups and the kids menu had a milk shake 'in a souvenir cup' listed. So when I asked the waitress if THAT was the cup, she said no, but she could make it happen for us. You should have seen the kids faces when this thing arrived. The looked at us, and must have assumed it was for Ryan and I because Abby asked "That's for us!?" That was a lot of ice cream. And honestly, between the 4 of us we still had to dump some of it out. But we tipped our waitress well and that cup will be sitting on one of our nightstands for a long time to come.
Amelia Island is known for the number of shark teeth that wash up on its beaches. While we were walking around the little town waiting on our lunch reservation we found a visitors center. Inside the lady said "everything in here is free, take anything you'd like". Hazel's eye lit up and she asked "Can I have a bag" (my little pack rat). She loaded up on pamphlets and papers and maps and while we tossed most of it a few days later, one little paper was super helpful....a guide to shark teeth.
Earlier in the day I'd found a shell that sort of reminded me of a tooth.....it wasn't black like I'd expect most shark teeth to be, more white/shell colored. I handed it to Hazel saying "this might be a shark tooth! Go show Daddy". I knew full well it likely was not, but was hoping I could convince the kids we'd found one. Well, thanks to Hazel's handy dandy free paper, we found out that I had in fact found a real shark tooth - from a Hammerhead shark.
Now, my story would only be better if I had a picture to show you of the tooth, OR the tooth itself, but somehow when we got back to the condo, I remember putting it in a very safe spot, thinking that the girls would want to keep it and show friends. Turns out the spot is SO safe, that even I can't remember what I did with it. We've searched high and low and maybe it'll turn up somewhere random, but for now all we have is the memory. Wah wah!
Day 2 took us to the ocean right in Jacksonville. We hiked through a small nature preserve to show the kids how the trees and vegetation are very different from back home. We saw tiny crabs, looked out over the back waters, stumbled on a guy looking at Great Horned Owls (we didn't see them)...and even tried to find a geo cache - that is until I read that you'd need pants and a machete to get to it.
After our hike we hit the beach until we were tired of sitting in the sun and then went back to the condo to play in the pool and grill up dinner. I think this trip was the perfect mix of activity and relaxation. We had a rough idea of what we'd want to do and armed with that we just winged it. Very unusual for me! I'm not great at winging it! But, I vowed back in early 2021 that I was going to live life with whimsy this year and while I still have a long way to go...I'm trying to keep that as a reminder in the back of my head. I think that mantra will do me well on this big road-trip to Yellowstone! That's a lot of driving and a lot of windshield time for little people.
Oh shoot, I forgot about the lizard too. Ryan had been telling the girls about the lizards since he went down there and the day we told the kids we were taking them to Florida Hazel exclaimed that she was going to catch a lizard. Nobody thought she'd actually be able to do it. Those little guys are fast. But, I gotta hand it to her. Her persistence paid off and she caught this one on the very first night. She continued to try to catch more of the remainder of our trip, and in the end, this was the only one she got...but I'm proud of her!
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