Mini Family Vacay - Cousins' Vacation 2.0

Things around here have been going pretty well lately. We have quite a bit to celebrate. If you haven't heard.... congratulations are in order. Steven got a much deserved promotion at work! All his hard word has paid off and he earned the title of Level 3 Engineer. He puts in a lot of long hours and works really hard so it was very exciting to see all of that recognized.

Then, this Saturday we were all set to go to Honeymoon Island and meet up with Steven's parents, Julie, Eric, and "Baby" Evie. Unfortunately, getting to Honeymoon Island at this moment might require an ark due to all the rain they had over that way earlier this week. I even heard a rumor that all the animals in the area were seen lining up two-by-two. Needless to say, none of us got the memo to start building an ark (plus I think our HOA would have had something negative to say about us trying that) so that plan had to be nixed. We were pretty sad that we were having trouble coordinating something different to allow us to all visit together and spend time. Especially since the cousins were all set to have a beach reunion. Then, Grandma and Grandaddy (Steven's parents for anyone that doesn't follow along usually) came to the rescue. They determined that they could alter their hotel stay for Friday night from 1 bedroom to 2 bedrooms and we could stay overnight with them. Perfect! That set our weekend family getaway into motion and the Second Annual Cousins' Vacation was on!

Now, I have packed for all of us to go places before. I even packed for a week long vacation to the Keys which includes not only regular clothes but a load of other beach related items. I have never packed four people in about 12 hours though. It went better than expected except for Kenzie insisting on "helping". That is cute... but requires a lot of patience and willingness to redo things a few times. Also, once Will figured out that it was more fun to remove things from suitcases than just sit around watching me put stuff into it, it was all downhill. Anyway, we set up Jack to be boarded for a night and somehow managed to get everything done in time.

Friday morning we woke up EARLY. We had plans to be out of our house and on the road by 8am. That meant that Jack needed to be dropped off around 7 or 7:15, then the car had to be loaded, and four people had to get their rears in gear to get out of here. I am very (very) proud to say that... Mission accomplished! Okay, we actually left a few minutes late, but that was on purpose. See, on Friday we were set to meet Grandma and Grandaddy at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. They left their house in Palm Coast and we left ours hoping to convene at the same time at the aquarium. As it turns out (and I don't think we could do this again if we tried), as we merged onto I-4 that morning, we saw their car about 8 or so car lengths ahead of us. Seriously. We stopped at the rest stop before continuing on to the aquarium.

When we got there, it was pretty crowded but we found parking and managed to get everyone out of the car and through the ticket line pretty quickly. We have driven by the aquarium numerous times and always wanted to stop, but we never really had the time. I'm so glad we did it. I'm actually the only one in our group that has seen Dolphin Tale (though I think we are going to try to get it from the library sometime soon because Steven wants to see it and we think Kenzie MAY enjoy it) so I knew most of Winter's story. I knew the Hollywood version at least. There is a lot to actually see at the aquarium though. The aquarium focuses on rescuing, rehabilitating, and releasing animals, but they also have a lot of resident animals that are not candidates for release (like Winter). Kenzie (and we are learning Will, too) LOVE fish. The two of them were super impressed with all the large fish and Kenzie also loves turtles so this was right up their alley.

It didn't take us long to find Winter (and Hope). Let me tell you... she is one cool dolphin. She is quite impressive to watch. We saw her playing underwater and then watched her trainers do some physical therapy with her for a bit while one of the trainers explained how they work with her and why (how, and when) she wears her tail. She actually swims better with it off and wearing it is like exercising so she only does it for a period of time each day.

After seeing Winter we checked out some of the other resident animals such as Rufus the pelican and some of the resident sea turtles. Eventually we made our way back downstairs and decided to stop for lunch in the "cafe" right out front before we went to the second location.

While we were waiting to order lunch the sky opened up. It was crazy! That storm was quite fierce. We ended up hanging around and eating while it calmed down. Then, we decided to take the trolley to the second location. This location was more about the movie and included sets, props, and other movie related items. It also had a kids' play area that Kenzie LOVED. Will fell asleep as soon as I started walking around with him once we were there and he napped (hard) for the duration of our stay there. One of the coolest things there was this screen that simulated the inside of Winter's tank and if you touched the screen, she would come over and interact with you. Kenzie thought she won the dolphin lottery. It was adorable!

After playing around for a bit, we decided to take the boat back to the aquarium. It was not the prettiest of days at this point, but Kenzie LOVED the boat ride. Will was indifferent, I think. He was still exhausted. Poor guy! Once back, we picked up our car and headed out for the hotel.

Except for a pretty annoying detour, the drive to the hotel was uneventful. Once we pulled in though, we realized another major storm was brewing. The winds were probably close to 30-50 mph sustained. It was like a mini tropical storm. While trying to walk the kids into the hotel Steven had to drag Kenzie because she was leaning into the wind as much as she could but it just kept pushing her backwards. I must admit, I laughed. Reminded me of the Pali Lookout in Oahu. We finally made it inside (a bit disheveled) and just in time. The sky opened again. This wasn't boding well for our stay. Luckily, it didn't last too long and before we knew it, the sun was peaking through again. Our hotel room was nice. We shared a 2 bedroom suite with Grandma and Grandaddy. We actually were told that we had the biggest balcony in the entire hotel. That's pretty cool.

Before long Julie, Eric, and Evie showed up. They were travelling from Marco Island that morning so they were just a bit behind us. We took the kids upstairs to their room to play for a few minutes before we had to get ready for dinner. Evie wasn't super sure about Steven or me, initially (understandable) but she gravitated to Kenzie and Will. So cute! We ended up going to a super yummy Italian restaurant for dinner. Kenzie liked her pizza and Will shared (what seemed like 1/2) of my dinner  of rigatoni with meatballs. After dinner we decided to let the kids run on the beach and take some pictures. It ended up being an amazing night and despite needing to wade through water just to get to the beach due to all their rain and the flooding, it was really enjoyable. We got some great shots of the kids and Kenzie loved picking up all the shells. The kid is also obsessed with shells. We might need to move to the beach one day. She is just becoming a beach kinda kid. Will is probably well on his way there too.

After taking some pictures and watching  part of the sunset, I decided to take Will back up to the room and put him to bed. He was seriously lacking in the sleep department and was starting to get really annoyed with all of us. I got him down fairly easily and he was OUT by 8:15. Perfect! I didn't expect much out of him seeing that he is our eater... Not our sleeper. He was in the same room as us AND in his pack n play. I entirely expected to be up half the night with him. We hung out in the main room for a while once everyone got back and eventually decided we were all tired. We decided to try to let Kenzie sleep on the pullout couch. We honestly didn't think that was going to work out well either. As it turned out, she kept calling me out there because she heard noises. Eventually we started ignoring her because she was just postponing bed. She talked to herself until almost 11 and then finally fell asleep. Steven went out to check on her and she was dead to the world. The next morning he checked again and she wa in the EXACT same position so we don't think she moved at all. Something about this entire thing made Steven and I a bit sad. Not only is our little girl growing up, but she did something so grown up all on her own. She slept in a sofa bed at a hotel by herself! Tear! She is getting too big, way too quickly. Then (amazingly) Will only woke up once all night. Once! He did so well!! He was up at 6:15 Saturday morning, but that is nothing new. 

We got a pretty early start on Saturday and went to have breakfast before going out to the beach. Usually, I am a West Coast (of Florida) kind of girl... But this ocean was not happy. Will and I sat at the water's edge and played in the sand. It took him a bit to get into the hang of things. He was not happy initially when I set him down, but once he sat there a minute he was fine and he really loved playing in the sand.

 After doing the same for a while, Kenzie ventured out into the water with Steven. She was even a bit iffy and this is the kid raised at Cocoa with fairly large (for Florida) waves. She ended up about waist high but wasn't into using her boogie board. Steven tried it though... there was just too much of an undertow.

We were soon joined by Julie, Eric, and Evie. Kenzie loved playing with Evie on the beach. She held onto her very tightly when they tried to go into the water a bit. It is so cool to see them interact. Especially as they allow get older. I am so happy we could make the Cousins' Vacation happen because these are special memories for us and eventually for the kids. 

We all went back to the pool before long. The ocean was just not happening. Kenzie tried to dive for one of her toys and screamed bloody murder because the amount of chlorine in the pool was insane! We all smelled it, but I guess we didn't realize how bad it was until that happened. She still had fun blowing bubbles and kicking though. It was nice to spend some calm time with the family. 

I eventually took Will upstairs for a nap. He was easy to get down again and he ended up sleeping through everyone coming back, getting showered, changed, and packed, and eventually had to be woken up to get ready to go. Poor guy was exhausted. 

We packed up our car and went to one last lunch with the fam. While at lunch, the sky opened again (have you noticed our recurring theme?). When we went to leave the restaurant we practically needed that ark to get to the car and get the kids in. It was crazy! The drive home was rainy for a while, but otherwise uneventful. We are unpacked and thought we were settled back into a normal routine. Both kids went to bed sort of early, and then it happened. Will woke up around 11:30 (after sleeping for 4.5 hours so that is awesome) and was BURNING UP! We took his temp and it was 101.5. We usually try to delay giving meds to a point, but this was high (and sudden), and nighttime makes me nervous because it seems like fevers spike at that point. So, we gave him a Tylenol suppository because he just spits liquid out. He fell asleep initially, and slept for about 20 minutes then woke up screaming. When I went back in, he was still hot and couldn't figure out what he wanted. He didn't seem to want to be held. Maybe it hurt? Fevers make my skin feel weird. But he didn't want to be put down. Poor guy. Wouldn't nurse, wouldn't drink water, wouldn't do anything but cry. Eventually he started sweating profusely. Good news... his fever broke. Bad news... he still wouldn't go to sleep and cried for the next 2 hours or so. Finally.... FINALLY! he fell asleep again. That was around 2 or 2:15. It is now 8:30 and he is still sleeping. I hope he is fighting off whatever this is and he feels better quickly. So far, no one else feels anything bad so I hope this is an isolated incident. 

Anyway, I am so happy we were able to revive the Cousins' Vacation and I am already looking forward to next year when Kenzie is a bigger helper, Evie is talking more and probably wanting to play with Kenzie more, and Will is walking and wanting to be a part of the fun. It was an awesome time! Until next year!!