Ode to Sunny Florida

Living in a cold climate makes you appreciate the warmth of the suns rays so much more. We had a fabulous time in beautiful southern Florida where the weather was sunny and in the 80's every day.

I had been looking forward to going on vacation but was of course concerned how my little man was going to do on the flight there and back. Bottom line - he was his happy little self charming all people around us. (Just so glad he wasn't screaming!)

We had a great start to our trip with a stop in Orlando to visit Ben and Vi - so refreshing to see them!

Then off to Cape Coral where my in-laws rented a house on the ocean for a week complete with a boat.

Cape Coral was beautiful....reminds me of Venice with built in canals acting as streets all throughout the community. Everyone has boats parked in the back of their house - in the canal - like a car in a driveway. You can simply drive the boat through the canals until you get to the ocean which is what we did.

I loved Cape Coral however, it is a huge retirement community and i think we were the youngest people in town. Not to mention, everywhere we went the older ones were oogling Ethan (coveting the freshness of his young skin i believe:)

I came to this realization as we were at the beach and no one was in the water - except for me. Looking around i observed that everyone on the beach was about 75 and quite content to be dry and continue tanning their already brown leathery skin.

After doing some laps in the ocean i got out only to see a fin emerge out of the very spot i had been swimming in. This was no sand shark people. It was a BIG fin. With the movie Jaws near to my thoughts i felt my stomach drop....however, my husband quickly informed me that it was a dolphin based on the shape of it's fin. We had just seen a school of dolphins the day before out in the ocean and he took notice of their fins - unlike myself who just wanted to jump in and swim with them. Looks like i got to and didn't know it.

Speaking of the water, Ethan LOVED it! The ocean was a little too cool for him to go in so we took him in the pool at the house - it felt more like his bath as it was heated to 90 degrees. He splashed around in his floaty and we were excited to see him kicking his legs in the water. He's going to be a little swimmer!

In this photo he's just chillin.' He looks like he should have a beer in one hand:) hahhah.

From Cape Coral we headed to northern Florida to Lake City where we visited Shaphan's grandpa as well as uncles and aunts. Though the banner crossing Main street advertised a civil war re-enactment (where the confederacy wins - yes - they changed history) we were quite happy to spend time with the family where we did some horseback riding and domino playing.

It's a totally different culture up there.

All in all, we had a great time and are looking forward to our next adventure which will be to New York! Can't wait.

For more pictures of our trip to Florida you can click on Photographs in the side bar.

Until next time....