Florida

We arrived in Florida on Sunday and drove to Tampa that evening to stay with friends Laine and Lee. We stayed up to midnight chatting and enjoying each other's company, and the next morning Laine made us French toast while Jackson terrorized their house, and Rachel stared in awe of their library.

After breakfast we headed out to Lowery Park Zoo which was recently voted the number-one family-friendly zoo in Parents Magazine. Thankfully we didn't have to pay the number-one price of admission ($12.00) since they have a reciprocal agreement with the Buffalo Zoo.


We made a bee-line for the penguins, and Jackson was just giddy to see them. He did his very best waddling to impress them and several of them responded by coming over to get a better look at him.

From there we went to the kangaroos/wallabies and were able to get right up close to them. Jackson loved watching them jump across the path in front of him and was close enough to touch them a time or two. In fact, he did touch a little part of them when we were adjusting the camera. He held up his hand and said, "Hop, hop, poo-poo."

At that point, our time at the zoo was limited, and we all got doused in hand sanitizer. :)

That night we drove to Bradenton, where we stayed with Aunt Jane and Billy and Abbie. It was the first time Aunt Jane got to meet Jackson, and they hit it off pretty quickly. He calls her "Deam."

The next morning Aunt Deam had to work, so we headed to the beach with Billy, Abbie, and two of Abbie's Friends. Jackson was so excited to see the ocean that he ran right in. The first wave knocked him back onto his butt, and he promptly said "all done" and got out.

He did like to splash around in the little puddles left by the receding tide, and he had a blast chasing the seagulls around.

He was also a big fan of the sand. We really should have planned better and brought some toys for him, but he had a good time burying Rachel instead.

That afternoon we met up with two of Rachel's good friends from middle school, Brenda and Tiffany, at GT Bray, the park we used to play at when we were younger. It was so much fun to see them again, and they are both doing great.

What was even cooler, though, was getting to see Jackson play with Tiffany's little boy, Trey. It was so neat to see our friendship come full circle, not to mention the fact that Trey is a total doll!

That evening after dinner we went to Tyler's Ice Cream (another one of Rachel's old haunts) with Billy, Aunt Jane, and her boyfriend, Jeff. Jackson put on quite a show flirting with the ice cream girls and racing back and forth across the store.

The next morning Jackson woke up early, so we took him out to Desoto Monument to let him burn off some energy. He got to play in the replica conquistador village, and we took him for a walk along the trails. We were all hot sweaty messes when we got back and had to take showers before lunch, which is a reminder of why we don't have any desire to live in Florida.

That afternoon we went to visit aunt Jane at work and had lunch at a great Cuban restaurant, which was a reminder that Florida does have a few upsides beside our family connections. It had been ages since we'd had authentic Cuban food, and even Jackson liked it.

The rest of the day was spent lounging by the pool with Billy and Abbie (Bil-Be and Abba to Jackson). They kept him entertained by doing cannonballs and splashing each other. Jackson was in heaven and kept asking for more.

It was hard to say goodbye because we aren't sure when we'll see them again, but if all else fails we'll try and get back to Bradenton next summer. We had too much fun not to.