everydaymoments: Of Sun, Sand and Spoilage...Florida 2013

And then one day you realize that it's cold here and it's warm there. You've had about enough months of winter and you decide it's worth the 40 hours in a minivan with 5 kids to be warm again. Lucky for us, we have family in Sarasota, the perfect excuse I'd say.

And we're off...

Yup, everyone was smiley and pleasant for ~~the whole 40 hours~~ about as long as it took to snap a picture. Actually, over all they did pretty good. Much less stressful than the last trip when the little Miss was just a tiny baby. We played a couple hundred rounds of the Alphabet game, counted state license plates and listened to Toby Mac one. more. time. all with a good supply of junk food and juice boxes. We like to travel overnight so the kids can sleep a lot of the time. That plan works great as long as there is a good supply of this...

But again, reality is, this was my only cup of Starbucks, most of our steaming cups o' joe came from your average scary gas station. Let me just say, the restrooms are much cleaner at 3:00 a.m. but the scare factor of the coffee is at least doubled.

We spent part of 2 days on the beach. The first of which was rather frigid but what did we care, we played the tourist role well, sweatshirts and blankets but we were at the beach!

We (ahem) 'warmed up' with ice cream afterward. No trip to Sarasota is complete without a generous serving of Big Olaf's.

One scoop of food coloring, er, Superman ice cream please. It was a hit I tell you.

The second trip was much warmer. Perfect actually.

Sand Angels :)

These 2 are only about 6 weeks apart in age and they were inseparable. They got along so well and had so much fun together from the minute we arrived until the (tearful) minute we left.

That water was C.O.L.D. but no one seemed to notice but me.

My Little Beach Babe!

We spent a morning at the (more sweatshirt appropriate) Park.

Our super fun picnic lunch.

The little people loved it. The big kid thought of it more as an appetizer than a meal.

We loved the Tampa Zoo so much the last time that we went back for round two.

This guy kept himself busy capturing and documenting. I wonder where he might have gotten his shutterbug tendencies from. Hmm?

Meanwhile in a cage nearby....

Petting sting rays ~ Big Hit!

Well, what do you know, Mom was along on this trip too.

Anybody else relate to the "we're lucky if we have at least one picture with Mom on it" issue?

There was a round or two of golf for the guys and some retail therapy with a side of coffee shop chats for the Mommy's.

There was a (family friendly) night on the town with a mountain of all things BBQ'd devoured in short order. Please pass the barbeque sauce and the napkins.

We threw in an egg hunt on the last day just for good measure. Nothing like loading the kids up with a sugar stash before jamming them back in the van for hours. Since we were traveling home on Sunday, that was the extent of our Easter celebrations this year. No Sunrise service, no family feast....I have to say I missed it. It just didn't seem right to be remembering such an important event with a few worship tunes on the ipod and our gourmet lunch of beef sticks and cheese crackers.

We had a great time relaxing and hanging out with these super generous people who left us take over their house and disrupt their lives for a whole week. We were generally spoiled with cheesecake and cinnamon buns and bottomless cups of coffee served with a smile and an endless supply of clean towels. Thanks guys!