Flying Monkeys

What is one to do when Florida beckons you with grandparents, sunny, warm weather, and some comfy, homey digs to spread out at? You run, don't walk, to the nearest airport... or in my case, you fly from the nearest airport but let yourself be talked into landing somewhere not so close to your final destination in an effort to save a few pennies. That's a ticket to successful travel with kids right there...Thankfully, we did compromise on landing in the state of Florida itself and not in its peach-tastic northern neighbor.  Frugality... it's a beautiful thing. 

Nonetheless, once we made our way from Tampa (you know, on the west coast... arrived at via Minneapolis) to Palm Coast (on the east coast), encountering a Burger King employee along the way who, honest to goodness, offered to cook my veggie burger my way, we just sat back and relaxed and relegated Nana and Grandpa's house to a child hazard zone for 12 days. We celebrated Big Jack's 29th birthday, Molly ditched her floaties in the pool and learned to swim over and under water by herself, enjoyed being with all the aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, moms, dads, grandparents in one place for the first time ever, got super sandy, super treated, and super sunned-out. We ate delicious food, met up with some alligators (in a supervised environment), made friends with a snake (in a less-supervised environment), caught a spring training game (have no fear, the Nationals are still really bad this year), pretended at the Children's Museum, and enjoyed lots of naps (if your name isn't Jack... if it is, well, you just enjoyed squirreling your way out of most of your naps). It was a wonderful way to avoid the nasty rain in Seattle. 

Vacations are so good for the soul, so bad for the waist line, and so heartwarming when grandparents and grandkids get to enjoy each other's company. We, as always, can't thank everyone enough for all the love, the laughing, the wine, and the company. 

Jumping the gun... we haven't left Seattle yet.

Good company.

Open wide.

The littlest, fastest, sneakiest, screechiest technology thief around.

Hog wild for the bikes.

I think if I build a pretend pizza oven in my house that I will never see Molly again. Girlfriend likes the cook. 

So much sun and surf and sand. 

This dry little playtime didn't last long. But it was nice while it did last.

Bright lights, little city. 

Perfection... except that Molly insisted on bubblegum ice cream. Ew. 

This is a good thing...

So is this.

Two, four, six, eight... we appreciate the food, the cheering, and the songs... the game itself? Eh. 

Master builder at work.

As always. I failed miserably to capture Nana and Grandpa (and the kids' first golf game!) themselves, but trust me, they didn't run away (even though, I'm sure it was tempting sometimes) and we had a great visit full of fun adventures.