Happy Monday! I’m here with Holly sharing some fun from our trip to Florida. I hope you’ll link up with us for Hello Monday!

Our trip was originally planned for Friday – Tuesday. Luckily, we were going to visit my parents while they were in Florida for a little while because we had to change our plans a few weeks ago. Luke’s Lego League team advanced to the state competition and it was on the Saturday we were supposed to be on vacation. I was able to change our flights and we went Sunday – Wednesday. Jeff had some work obligations and came home on Tuesday.

Luke’s team ended up being one of nine teams to be recognized at the state competition. They didn’t advance to nationals, but we are so proud of him!!

Since our trip was a little shorter, I wanted to maximize our time. We had a 6:15 am flight, which meant I had a 3:20 alarm. Ooooo, that was early! The guys were excited to go so everyone woke up quickly and easily.

We were supposed to land in Fort Myers around 8:55 am, but we didn’t. It was foggy so we circled the airport and had to go land in West Palm to refuel. That diversion added about 45 minutes but it meant that my dad had to change the tee time for that day. It all worked out because they ended up playing a course my dad really wanted to play and had a great time. My mom and I hung by the pool while they were golfing. It’s as so hot and lovely!!

We headed to bed pretty early on Sunday night because we tired and had a fun day planned on Monday! We were going south to the Everglades to take an airboat tour, a swamp buggy ride, and see an alligator show. We saw a pretty big gator and had a manatee swim around and under our boat! It was AMAZING!! I’ve wanted to see a manatee for a long time. If that gator hadn’t been so close, I might’ve jumped right in to swim with the manatee!

The airboat went flying through the mangrove waterways. Our driver said he had us over 45 mph. It was so fun!

Then we drove to another location for our swamp buggy tour. We didn’t see much wildlife – just a big black snake – but we learned a lot about the land and all the plants and trees.

After the swamp buggy, we had an alligator show. We felt a little sad for the gators in the show, but did learn about gators and got to hold a baby gator at the end.

There was an animal/big cat sanctuary but we didn’t go to see it. The next day we saw the animal park on the news because an employee went into the tiger enclosure and shouldn’t have. They survived but it did not go well. Yikes!

We went to the pool for a bit before dinner. We won’t see my parents for Jack’s birthday so we went out to dinner to celebrate in Florida.

We ran into some friends from home and they joined us for dessert.

Tuesday was a beach day. I love the Gulf because the water is so gentle and the sand is so soft. The Gulf had more waves than we were expecting and the kids played in the water all day!

After about 5 hours we headed home for some pool time. Jeff was leaving and needed to get packed up. We soaked up some more sun and enjoyed the pool until dinner. It was great!

We woke up on Wednesday morning and saw that Jeff made it home safely (at midnight). We also realized that I am terrible at remembering to reapply sunscreen. Oops! Sorry kids! Wednesday was another beach day. It was another perfect 10 day on the beach! We only stayed for 3 or 4 hours. I needed to get everything repacked for our flight home that night. It was so hard to leave that beautiful water!!!

We got to the airport with time to grab some dinner and waited to board our flight. Jeff met us in Baltimore when our flight landed at 10. We came home and went straight to bed!

Thursday morning was a rough re-entry, but we made it through. I tried to wear as many bright colors to keep the Florida sunshine feeling going back in Maryland.

We were pretty thankful for a low key weekend to catch up. This was our dining room table on Sunday morning. All three of us catching up on all the make up work.

We were not very thankful for freezing cold weather with flurries on Saturday and Sunday!

We had the best time! I love a warm weather trip when it’s so cold here! My mom and I both finished the book I chose for our Jolabokaflod book club. We both really liked it! I think I am going to try to read another book by Karma Brown soon!

Hopefully a little Florida sunshine warms up your day reading this post. I am going to be holding on to as much as I can as the polar vortex comes through our town today. Have a great day full of sunshine and books!

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