Florida : Sugar Sand Park & Midnight at the Beach

After our picnic at Gumbo Limbo we headed down the road to Sugar Sand Park. The kids loved this place the last time A. Kathy took them and they were pretty excited to go back. It has a water station surrounded by a cool wooden structure that made for a great game of hide and seek. A. Vicky and Dominick met us there and he jumped right into the chase. They ran and ran while we relaxed in the shade with Grandma and then we did some geocaching in the surrounding park. Scott was the geocaching genius and found what no one else could see.

After a storm ran us out of the park, we headed back home for you guessed it...more trampoline time and another big family dinner. LOVE being back with family!

Eli got pretty good at doing flips!

Here is sweet Grandma Holly with two of her favorite guys. Scott told his mom that he would shave his head to show his support for her while she was going thru Chemo....Grandma wasnt sure it was much of a sacrifice. :)

One of the things I did with Scott on our first trip was visit the beach at midnight and I LOVED it. The sound of the waves, the moonlight on the water and the breeze...its just wonderful! I wanted the kids to experience it too and we got both A. Vicky and A. Kathy to come along too. The kids were ecstatic when we told them we were running to get FroYo and even more when we said we were heading to the beach.

They look like they are considering climbing it....

Yep....just like a monkey...

Dominick made it farther than anyone else...pretty good in the dark!

Not too bad for taking it in complete darkness!

This is just so beautiful! I am so glad we got to share this with the kids.

Here is Noah contemplating the great unknown...

Playing with the waves...jumping out of the way....

Ok. I added this pic. not so you could see me kiss my hubby...but so you could see what Eli was doing in the background. Rem. it was pitch black....but look at his face! :)

More midnight pics....look at those crazy eyes!

Is that Captain Jack Sparrow?

The kids loved the beach at night which only made them want a beach day that much more....

Florida : Gumbo LImbo

Finally getting back to Spring Break in Florida before I forget what we did....

This year we left a few hours later than usual and that really seemed to throw off our drive. The things we were used to seeing were hidden in the dark and our 24 hour road trip got us there by 7:30 pm which didn't leave us much time to wind down before going to bed. So, lesson learned. Must leave before 5...but we rented a minivan this year and that made the driving easier on US so that was great!

The kids always do a great job on our road trips. They have great attitudes and we always have fun. Eli and Autumn love the car ride more than the other 2 and this year, it was harder on Lucas because we took a smaller van. You can see how well he was holding up after a few hours on the road...

24 hours straight....Kansas to South Florida.....the first few hours are filled with our new road trip music, played LOUDLY, while singing LOUDER mixed with memories of all of our other road trips to Florida. We really LOVE Florida and we all dream about living there someday. Coffee, more coffee, snacks and naps and before you know it we are in South Florida! The cousins were texting every few hours to see where we were with great anticipation! They couldn't wait to see each other! Within 10 minutes of saying hello to everyone, the little girls drug Lucas to the trampoline to work off all that stored energy...

The big kids got reacquainted and stayed up super late giggling into the night. Every year they squeeze 5 preteen/teenagers in one little room so they can pack in as much fun as possible. Some day soon though, that room will be too small. After sleeping in on Saturday, we went to the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca and then had a picnic on the inner coastal.

One of the coolest things about this nature center is their Sea Turtle Rehabilitation center. They have a turtle conservation team that rescues sick and injured sea turtles throughout southern Palm Beach County.

 

The Sea Horse is one of my favorites.

These two cousins are side by side every second of the day. :)

And these cousins are just getting too big! What beautiful girls!

After walking thru the butterfly garden we made our way to the waters edge...and dipped our toes into the inner coastal waters.

Does he look happy to be in Florida or what? :)

After dipping our toes we made our way down the boardwalk (where Lucas took about 50 photos of the cool vegetation) and stopped at the lookout tower. This is the inner coastal where we were headed for our picnic. The homes on the waters edge are Multi-Million dollar GORGEOUS.

Grandma Holly and A. Kathy packed us a little lunch with Grandma's famous pickles....YUM!

After this we headed to Sugar Sand Park for a little cool down in the water....

Spring Break - Scott's Instagram View of South Florida

Until I get a chance to go through all of my Florida photos, I thought you might enjoy Scott's Instagram photos. The weather was perfect for our Spring break vacation! We enjoyed tons of family time, the beach, several pools, the inter coastal, new wild life, parks, geocaching, skate boarding, bike riding, shuffle board, card games, hours on the trampoline (even Scott and I tried it!), sleeping in, staying up late and a total of 3200 miles and 53 hours of driving time in 7 days! It was the perfect vacation and I am so grateful we got to go again. More pics to follow as I go thru them all. :) Enjoy!