Florida

We arrived in Florida on Sunday night. Tallahassee held cold weather and welcome arms in the form of Kris’ grandparents. We stayed there one night and woke to a fire warming us in the living room fireplace. The boys had a great time and we got some pictures but I haven’t even seen them yet, let alone resizing and uploading. I will certainly share them later.

Monday we drove to Lakeland and though the trip was uneventful the boys were not happy to be back in the van for another 5 hours and Ivan especially let his feelings be known. We were able to have dinner with everyone when we got here and slept very well after our journey. Yesterday we stayed in the house until late afternoon when we went shopping and had dinner at the shopping plaza. We won’t be seeing Kris’ family for Christmas unless they decide to come to Michigan so we exchanged gifts last night as well.

Today, we did Florida stuff. It’s too cold to go to the beach but we did drive to Tampa and had lunch at The Columbia in Ybor City. It was wonderful, and not to make Travis and Amy drool but we had Cuban’s and Garbanzo bean soup. Mmmm. We also enjoyed Guava cheesecake and churros with yummy chocolate, caramel and guava sauces. It was some hot and hearty food…good for the soul. From lunch we drove down the road to the Florida Aquarium. The exhibits there are well done and worth the time and money. We did get a discount because of our Nashville Zoo memberships which was pretty significant. Owen and Ivan both enjoyed the fish and the otters really made Owen giggle. There was an otter named Ivan so of course we felt a kinship with him.

We are now back at the house relaxing. Kris is preparing to fly his remote control helicopter out in the garage, it’s a very tiny helicopter, and I am about to sort through our clothing and luggage to attempt some order in our room. We have completely covered all floor space with our vast amount of bags and it’s making me very tired.