February was vacation month for 3/4 of our family. Mike's new job kept him traveling quite a lot, so the boys and I packed up and headed to his parents' house in Florida. Here's what we left:
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| View out the front window |
So we got our man Ryan a haircut, took Thomas out of preschool for three weeks and by no small miracle, made it to our plane despite what felt like the longest car ride to the airport ever, arriving 20 minutes prior to our scheduled departure. We gratefully headed south to Nana Honey and Papa Bear's house.
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| Before |
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| After |
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| Thank God for Pop Chips and good snacks |
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| Sleeping handsome buy on my right |
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| Wakeful handsome boy on my left! |
Our cool little dudes were pretty amped up to get the party started.
Thomas couldn't wait to get in the pool and hone his swimming skills. His preschool teacher was kind enough to let us bring a "backpack" (floatie) that they use in his swim lessons with us. We are so proud to announce that two weeks into the trip and sore from the strap rash that tons of swimming had given him, he swam and jumped with NO FLOATATION DEVICE!!!
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| Swimming one day with Nana Wuff |
Thomas was also pretty excited at the constant distraction that multiple adults provided. Family friend Lisa from Sweden, who once took care of Mike when he was a boy, was also visiting and she was such a fun, yet calming influence on our boys, especially Thomas. She took the boys to a couple of playgrounds, spearheaded ordinary and extraordinary adventures, went swimming, spun tales, provided horseback rides on her back, dug holes and planted landscapes, danced, subsidized the Mardi Gras beads collection and let Thomas help with the cooking.
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| Dancing to some music at the Mardi Gras festival at The Villages |
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| A little lemon in the coconut is a surprisingly good treat! |
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| Cheers! |
Our man Ryan loved getting out and about and playing almost as many sports as Thomas did. We already knew he has great hand-eye coordination and enjoys tennis and golf, but we learned that he was strangely adept at shuffleboard considering how long the pole is given his respective height.
Truth be told, he was probably most excited to not have to transport Thomas to and from preschool and accompany me on endless errands! Instead, he could eat, sleep and play (mostly) on his own schedule.
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| Feeding the Bear |
All of this fun, required lots of eating and drinking. So we made sure to replenish all of the time!
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| Trying gator bites at lunchtime |
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| Sharing a drink at tennis |
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| Thomas' new favorite glass |
Thanks to all the helpers, everyone got to experience a wonderful vacation. Nana Honey got to spoil two of her favorite people, who kept her in stitches most of the time with their antics; Mama got to head off to play pickleball or walk or go to the store alone; Papa Bear got lots of chances to take pictures and videos; Thomas could usually find at least one of us to play with him or go along with what he wanted to do; Ryan had a lot of people to take him out in the golf cart for rides. And I hear that Lisa is actually going back to the McCollums' house in a few weeks, likely to have her much earned vacation after watching after our kids for two whole weeks!
