Thank goodness for long, relaxing, and fun vacations! I'm still wrestling with a lot of work toxicity and drama, and the week prior to vacation was particularly rough. I also still don't know what's going on with my stomach, though there is some evidence that the work stress is making it worse. Thankfully this vacation came at the perfect time.
This past week Robert and I took off to Florida to visit with my brother James AKA Rusty, his wife, Heather and their two kids, Harper and Landyn. Even though it was the week before school starting and both James and Heather had to work, we squeezed in a lot of family time and had a blast.
Here are my favorite pictures from the trip!
Our first breakfast of the trip was Backwater, which is a magical place where you make your own pancakes. We loved it so much we went several times.
There were two hiking adventures - Turkey Creek Sanctuary and Brevard Enchanted Forest. We saw three gopher tortoises at Turkey Creek and had a wild geocaching adventure thanks to Harper. She was initially terrified of a Lubber grasshopper, but after searching and searching for a geocache she decided it was not on the trail. Without hesitation, she went gallivanting through the forest. Landyn disappeared after her, and so naturally we all ended up in the middle of the woods. Harper was victorious!
Sadly, I took several pictures of lovely things, including the Lubber grasshopper and this Rosary Pea, only to discover they were all invasive thanks to the expert in the visitor center.
We enjoyed lots of games, including shopping for a couple new ones. Robert and Harper are impossibly competitive, but that helped keep the attempts to cheat in check. Heather also made several dinners, and that was really nice.
Robert and I had the kids two different days while Heather worked. We enjoyed watching the kids go bananas at Defy (an indoor trampoline park) and took the kids to the Brevard Zoo the next day, which was just about the most perfect zoo. Not too big, lots of interacting with the animals, and it was gorgeous.
Harper is always looking out for Landyn. She is an exceptional big sister and one of the most caring people I've had the joy of knowing.
One of my favorite moments from the zoo: hissing cockroaches. They were in a cave where we could walk beneath them and be surrounded by their beautiful music.
We also fed two different kinds of birds, which was a dream come true. One of the zoo volunteers described the lorikeet enclosure as a frat house and the cockatiel enclosure as the senior living home. He was exactly right! Poor Robert was mauled, bitten, and quite possibly pooped on by the lorikeets. He's always so cherished by animals he doesn't necessarily like.
We also took a choo choo ride, fed deer, and ambled leisurely by kangaroos and ostriches who were mere inches from us.
I took tons of pictures of Harper and Landyn together, and they're all wonderful. It's tough not to share them all. Harper is so sweet and gentle with him, even when he's being a total firecracker.
Heather, Harper, Robert, and I spent a fun morning painting together at Painting with a Twist. We all made different things and had a blast.
One of the best moments of the whole trip was getting to observe Harper during one of her horseback riding lessons. Seriously! What a dream come true! All these months of facetiming her and listening to her talk about her lessons and show me pictures and videos, and then there I was, getting to be a part of it and see the magic in person.
Like any other trip, I did some shopping. Harper and I found an amazing antique mall and went not once, but twice because it took so long to get through it all. It looks like I have a new shopping buddy!
Here are my finds (not including three bars of soap I found here and there): some stamps for a collage project, jewelry, and a very special sticker.
What I don't have pictures of is all the swimming we did. We swam at the hotel pool a few times, the community pool once (where we ended up playing ball with half the kids there), and the beach twice. The beaches in the Melbourne area are so clean with soft sand and pelicans who shoot straight into the ocean like arrows and come up gobbling fish. We chased and rode waves, played volleyball and frisbee, and had the time of our lives. There's nothing like chasing waves with family. Though we were having too much fun to take any pictures, going to the beach with everyone was my favorite part. Even the first day when a storm blew in and the thunder was so loud it felt like a gurgle in my throat. I loved it all. Watching Landyn take on waves ten times his size and then come out the other side with the biggest grin, all the while Harper right there watching over him. Playing frisbee and volleyball with the waves all around, sucking your feet into the sand. Watching Harper pick up "an interesting rock shell" from the waves and freaking out when we showed her the crab inside. All of it. It was all the best.
We started out with about a dozen things on our list to see and do on this trip and left with twice that many things to do when we come back. With Landyn starting Kindergarten and Harper journeying into middle school and volleyball and both kids growing up so fast, I know we'll add even more things to the list by the time we take our next Florida trip.
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