For Spring Break this year we went to Florida! The kids hadn't flown since they were too little to remember, so that was one of the things we were most looking forward to. It was pretty exciting and fun.
We had a layover in Houston.
We arrived in Florida around 11:00 pm, and found a 2 hour long rental car line with many angry people leaving without cars. We had pre-rented a van, but heard from people coming out of the line that all the vans were gone and that they would just give us two cars to drive around all week (which clearly wouldn't work for us). While I waited in the line, Dustin went around to other rental car companies to see if there were any other options. A nice man called a friend who wasn't at the airport, who had one van left. We took a chance, left the Budget line, had some random stranger pick up our whole family at midnight and drive us to a somewhat sketchy part of Orlando, where the nicest lady was waiting with a really nice, clean Chrysler Pacifica for our family to drive for the week! It stinks that we ended up paying double for a van to drive, but we didn't have a lot of hope while waiting in the Budget Rental line at the airport. We finally pulled into our resort around 1:30 AM and were greeted by this guy:
We were settled and in bed by 2:30, and awake again at 6:30 AM to head to Disney World!
It was a beautiful 90 degree day, and it really wasn't too crowded, thanks to Corona. Also thanks to Corona, we had to wear our masks the whole time, including for pictures (except for the above picture, which we took and then got in trouble for. In my defense, I hadn't seen the sign yet saying that masks had to be worn, even during pictures).
Here was our Splash Mountain picture. They wouldn't let us buy it because Maren's mask came down during the ride. Even though it was accidental. They were slightly extreme when it came to the masks. Maybe in the name of mask encouragement?
We were allowed to take off the mask while we ate, so we hurried and snuck a picture in. Except for Dustin, who was more compliant.
DisneyWorld was fun! It was our first time there and we used every possible minute of our time, which was exhausting, but fun. The lines weren't too long and the crowds weren't too big. Overall, it was a great day!
The next day was Sunday. We slept in as long as we could, after our couple of exhausting days with little sleep. Back in Utah it was our Stake Conference, so we were able to zoom in to our meeting from our hotel. We ate, walked the grounds of the resort and enjoyed the alligator signs and the actual alligators we could see in the different lakes around the resort! It was very exciting!
We also drove over to the Orlando Temple and walked around the grounds. It was beautiful!
That night we played games and shuffleboard back at the hotel. It was a lovely, relaxing Sunday.
The next morning we got up and went to a "pick your own" Citrus Farm near Orlando. This place looked so fun online! Monster trucks! Picking amazing fruit! A cute little country store! And for sure, parts of it didn't disappoint...
There was some fruit, but not as much that was ripe as it seemed like there would be. We rode the Monster Truck, but it was a pretty tame little tour around the farm. The country store was cute and we got squished pennies and homemade orange creamsicle slushies, and boiled peanuts (a first for us) so that part was a win. And, we saw more alligators, which was cool.
Grant even got to drive the Monster Truck!
That evening we went to the town of Celebration and rented bikes and rode all over the area for a couple of hours. This was so much fun! They had a 7 mile track of mostly boardwalks through lush, green forests and cute little neighborhoods with lakes and amazing birds and more alligators. The weather and the scenery were both beautiful.
We got pizza and ice cream in downtown Celebration that night.
And we got back to the hotel in time to swim for an hour.
The next morning we got up and drove a couple of hours to the Gulf of Mexico side of Florida and played at a couple of different beaches. The first was Siesta Beach, which is declared the Best Beach in the United States (we saw the sign). The sand was absolutely amazing, as soft and fine as flour. However, it was super crowded and the although water was beautiful and warm, it was a little slimy with seaweed. We played and ate lunch for a few hours and then we went to try another beach that we had heard about.
Turtle Beach was tons of fun! The water was cleaner and it was much less crowded than Siesta Beach. The sand was more typical beach sand, which was still really fun to play in. There were lots of shells to be found and the kids had tons of fun playing in the waves.
Just before sunset, we drove back to Siesta Beach (they were only about 10 minutes apart from each other) and got there just in time to see the amazing sunset. Beautiful!
Wednesday morning we got up bright and early and headed south to Wild Florida for an airboat tour. We actually saw less alligators on this tour than we had at almost every other place we had been! But the boat ride was fun, and the lake was beautiful. And, we did see a couple of alligators and cool birds, so we felt happy.
This big mama and her babies were along the walkway coming off of the boat.
They also had a little zoo area with some fun animal shows, including an alligator feeding which was so fun to see.
We ate alligator nuggets, just to say that we had. They tasted like chicken.
We got to hold an alligator or two.
And, Avery got her first kiss.
We have a tendency to go non-stop when we vacation, but we had a really fun resort we were staying at, and so we scheduled in time to relax and enjoy it. Wednesday afternoon we played table tennis and volleyball at our resort and then went and did some shopping for souvenirs and ate dinner at a yummy Chinese Restaurant.
Thursday morning we went to the Atlantic side of Florida to Cocoa Beach. We stopped at Ron Jon's Surf Shop and then played at Cocoa Beach for the afternoon. It was a cooler day and also very windy, so the waves were pretty big and fun for the kids to play in. It was a little colder than I want to be wet in, so I took shelter in the cabana we rented to protect us from the wind. We also rented boogie boards for the kids and they had tons of fun playing in the waves.
Friday morning we got up and checked out of our hotel. We didn't have to turn in our rental car and be to the airport until 3:00 that afternoon, so we drove around the Orlando area and eventually ended up at Wekiwa Springs State Park. We ate lunch and walked around the nature trails. The water was beautiful! It is a warm springs swimming area and we wished we could have played in the water. Next time!
We said goodbye to Florida, flew back to Las Vegas and drove to my parents home that night, arriving around 2 A.M. The next morning we picked up Pepper from a kennel near my parent's house where we had left her before leaving. It was a very happy reunion! It was General Conference weekend and also Easter, so we stayed and enjoyed it with my parents. We hadn't been to their house in almost a year because of Covid! And we had only seen them a couple of times for very short amounts of time during that year. So it was really nice to be able to visit and relax and enjoy their company. I'm so grateful for the Covid vaccine! What a miracle it is!
Chocolate eggs from Mrs. Cavanaughs, where Avery works.
We watched General Conference, rode my dad's horse, watched March Madness, ate lots of Easter candy, had an Easter Egg Hunt and enjoyed beautiful weather and great company. It was a great end to our vacation!
No comments:
Post a Comment