Florida Recap

May 14 we got up at 5:30am so that we could be in the van by 6:15 to drive to BWI for our flight to West Palm Beach, Florida. Our flight was slightly delayed due to fog. After we gathered up our luggage (which wasn't an easy task as we had 4 adults trying to push Nadia in a stroller and carry 1 baby, 2 car seats, 3 large suitcases, 3 small suitcases, and our carry-on bags), we picked up our minivan from Alamo. We stopped at Wendy's for lunch and arrived at our resort on Hutchinson Island around 2pm. We headed straight for the swimming pools. There was one large pool (3-5 ft deep), one small wading pool (1 ft deep), and a jacuzzi (3 ft deep). We spent some time at the pools and/or beach every day except for Monday. On Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday we made two swimming trips a day - once in the morning after Ian woke up from his first nap and once in the afternoon after Nadia got up from her only nap. Most of the days one of the trips was to the beach and the other was to the pools. Most of the days I was the only adult who made both trips. My mom only joined us a couple of times. Except for Wednesday when he worked all day and Thursday when he did both trips, Paul did one of the two trips each day. My dad did one trip a day.

The only day the weather interfered was on Monday afternoon, which is why we didn't go to the pool or beach that day. That was the only time it rained during our seven days here. The weather was in the 80's every day. It was beautiful! I wouldn't want to live in this warm of a climate (although I wouldn't mind living farther south than PA), but I do really enjoy visiting places that are this warm for beach vacations!! It was much cooler this past week in MD and PA, but thankfully it's warming back up so hopefully we won't be in for a rude awakening in terms of the temperatures when we return today.

Aside from Saturday when we had lunch at a restaurant at another beach that was about 5 minutes from our resort, we ate lunch in our suite every day. We ate breakfast in our suite all seven mornings. That's one of the advantages of staying in a resort suite rather than a traditional hotel room. Our suite had a full-size refrigerator/freezer, dishwasher, stovetop/oven, microwave, blender, toaster, dishes, silverware, glassware, etc. In fact the kitchen had two amenities I don't have at home - an ice maker and garbage disposal! There were two stools at the breakfast bar and six chairs around the dining room table. All of us had a delicious filet mignon dinner at Walter's home on Friday night. Saturday night we ate a restaurant along the river. Sunday night my parents had dinner at Walter's home while we had pizza delivered to our suite. Monday night we went to Cracker Barrell (my dad's choice). Tuesday we grilled burgers here at the resort. It was lovely to eat our dinner while looking at the ocean. Wednesday we ate leftovers in our suite, and Thursday everyone except Ian & I went out to eat. Nadia had her face painted at the restaurant and got a dog shaped balloon.

We had planned on going to four places during our stay. Due to Paul's schoolwork, we only did three of them. On Saturday (our first full day here), Paul, Walter, and my dad went to a military museum. Had I known that he was going to be too busy to keep doing things with us later in the week, I would have scratched that museum from our itinerary as it was very small (only open on Saturdays) so that Paul could have gone to the much bigger Navy Seal museum (open seven days a week). Oh well. On Monday Walter, Aunt Janet, my Mom, and I took Nadia and Ian to a Children's Museum. Nadia enjoyed that very much as well as playing in the interactive water fountains outside. On Wednesday morning we went to the Oceanographic Center. Aunt Janet and my Dad fed some sting rays.

While Nadia took her afternoon nap, we played games some days. I won two games of Power Yahtzee, one game of regular Yahtzee, and one game of Boggle. My dad won one game of Racko. My Aunt Janet won one game of Power Yahtzee (I didn't play that time) and one game of Racko. My mom joined us for one game of Racko, and Walter played two of the games of Power Yahtzee. The other games it was just my Dad, my Aunt, and myself. Paul didn't play any of these games with us, but he did play one game of billiards, one game of chess, two games of Backgammon, and one game of Yahtzee with my Dad. Paul won three of the games, and my Dad won the two Backgammon games.

We'll be checking out around 10am from our resort and heading back to the airport to return the minivan and eat lunch before flying back to Baltimore. We're meeting my sister and her kids at the Port Discovery children's museum at 4pm as the entrance fee is usually $12.95 per person (ages 2 and up), but tonight Target is sponsoring a Family Fun Night so it's only $2 per person. We'll spend the night with my parents and then drive back to PA tomorrow. It will be nice to spend some time with my sister and her family tonight as we might not see them again for two more years.