Our Florida Vacation
Its been over a month since we got back from our Florida vacation, and we are just now getting to blogging about all the fun. Honestly, can’t exactly put our finger on why the delay, but the big one is definitely trying to readjust the kids back to their regular schedule after “freedom” week. This whole task took time, a lot of google, timeout, early bedtimes… Parents, please send all the advice for future trips.
It wasn’t just a vacation, we were also visiting Jimmy’s parents, which we all know what happens at the Grammy and Papa’s house stays at Grammy and Papa’s house. We also tried to align our vacations with Jimmy’s brothers family for a portion of our stay, which turned the 3 bedroom house into a sardine can for the first 3 days. Just imagine 6 adults, 5 kids all under one roof. But this was totally rare, we’r not often together in one place. The last time we were, it was before Jimmy’s parents made the big move to Florida in 2012.
But logistics and craziness aside, we had a wonderful time and our kids had a great time with grammy and papa. We tried to maintain a good balance between big and small day trips. The two big trips involved a trip to Magic Kingdom- Disney and Seaworld. First lets talk about Disney, we were totally unprepared, one thing we soon learned is that you really have to be mentally prepared to take on Disney, and we were not. We spent the whole days there and only went to on 3 rides, but we did watch ALL the parades. Yes, even the one with Brady and Edelman, which was awesome and also explained the crazy amount of people there. We did, however, put on a great show with our matching T-shirts that our amazing sister-in-law Lindsey made for us.
Our sister-in-law made ALL the shirts!!! My shirt was the cutest!
Next, Seaworld… this was a much better fit for us, it was the perfect size and had awesome shows. Of course the favorite from all was certainly the Dolphin show, and now Victoria is saying that she wants to be a dolphin trainer when she grows up. I, Anya, was checking things of my bucket list, one of the big ones was the mind blowing aquarium tunnel. It seriously has been my dream to walk through one for what feels like forever! But we also got to see sharks, seals and penguins. But we just could not stop ourselves from coming back to the dolphins.
The girls got to pick out their own pearl necklaces, that Grammy bought for them. The kids, weren’t the only one glued to that class, I (Anya) was too.
The whole week we really lucked out with the weather, and were able to enjoy a few pool days, and took a smaller trip to Gator World (where all the kids were brave enough to hold a baby alligator), and another trip to the Glass Bottom Boats tours. Lastly we enjoyed some walks at the Squares of the Villages where there was always live music and a bit of dancing.
He wasn’t a fan at first, but he did warm up later in the day. This was the second time for us on this glass bottom boat, and it was just as amazing as the first time.
This wasn’t our first time at The Villages and certainly not our last. We will try to visit every year, and will continue to try new things and visit new places. Our kids are so lucky to have grandparents that love them so much, and if that one week of spoiling puts smiles on their faces and memories for years to come… we’re okay with taking 4 weeks of trying to get them back on schedule, even if it drives us nuts.
BOSTON, MA