Spring Break in Florida

Florida was amazing. Kait and I drove through blizzards to get there but we would have done more just to see Jen, Luke and Luca. (and escape from this winter!) Spending a whole week with Kaitlin was also worth the 14-hour drive. I'm so thankful that my sisters are also my best friends.

So, to let you guys in on the fun we had, I have a few pictures of our adventures. OK, so there are more than a few...sorry for the overload, but I had a tough time choosing between them. :)

This is us and the car keys at like 5:00 in the morning right before we made the grand departure. I think we had gone to bed at like 2 a.m. the night/morning before...so we have an excuse for looking so sleepy-eyed and fuzzy.:)

Here we are on the way...I think we were in Tennessee at this point. As you can see, we were getting a bit bored of the car so we decided to take a break. This is a little antique store by one of the many gas stations we visited. We didn't buy anything but they had cool old hats.:)

This is Luca enjoying his birthday present from Bryan and I. It's a collection of old Winnie the Pooh stories with the original pretty illustrations. Though he looks docile here, this picture is very deceiving. With as much energy as Luca has, I'm not sure if he will ever sit down long enough for Jen to read him any of those stories.

As you can see, he enjoyed the string that I used to wrap the present more than the book itself...he played with that for a while.:)

This is us heading to the Village Market in Haile...you can see it behind Jen. That's the perfect place to sit outside and relax with some ice cream...which we did of course.

And I had to include a bit about Skip-Bo. This is Jen's newest craze and of course we got addicted. We spent some good times together getting beat by Jen.:) But who cares when you can sit outside on the deck with a slushy orange drink and enjoy the warmth of Florida?

In case you were wondering, Jen has rather sensitive eyes.:) When she forgets to wear a hat to the pool, she's forced to improvise...that's my dress she's wearing as a turban there.

This is where where Jen took us for our birthdays on March 10th. It's a very cool place and we had a wonderful birthday dinner, but the real excitement happened AFTER dinner...:)

As most of you have probably read on Jen's blog, things got a bit violent. We made a quick stop for groceries and on the way out Kait made a bold comment about Jen's age. She soon found herself with a baguette in her face and a bloody nose.:) hehe. Jen said she had no idea the bread would swing around that fast but she didn't seem too repentant.:)
We tried to get a picture together to commemorate the evening, but it seems that getting hit in the head with a baguette had some adverse side effects for Kait...hopefully nothing permanent. Either that or she just wasn't in the mood to cooperate anymore.:)

And now for the pictures of Jekyll Island. We took a day trip with Jen and Luca on Friday to the little island off of the coast of southern Georgia. I'd been there before for a spring break trip a couple years earlier with Mom and Andria and it was just as pretty as I remembered it. The main attraction is the Jekyll Island Clubhouse. It's now a beautiful hotel but used to be a clubhouse where all the richest families in the the US would come spend their summer vacations. They built their own beautiful cottages around it and it is now there for people to visit and enjoy...so we did.:)

This is the restaurant at Crane Cottage where we had a wonderful lunch.


Thankfully, there was a huge mirror on the wall in the cottage to keep Luca busy during lunch. (He LOVES looking at himself in the mirror...perhaps a bit vain already):)



The past few pictures are from the courtyard at Crane Cottage...one of my favorite spots.



They have croquet set up in the front lawn of the hotel...so adorable!



Like I said, it was a wonderful week...and vacation from reality. Thanks Kait for spending your spring break with me and thanks to Luke, Jen, and Luca for your hospitality. it was so good to get to spend time with you!