Well, it's over. We are officially home. I am sitting on my own couch, using my own Wi-Fi connection, and watching my own TV after taking a shower in my own shower. And I'm happy. Yet also sort of sad. It's always sad when a trip has to end and reality has to set back in. But I'm happy to be home in our house with the kids fast asleep in their own beds with a ton of new, fun memories to dream about. I'll miss listening to them giggle as they fall asleep together though and I think they were sort of sad tonight to not get to sleep together. Kenzie even said she could sleep in Will's room tonight if he wanted her to. Sweet babies.
Anyway, as far as today goes, this post should be fairly short and sweet because we spent the majority of our day driving. Today actually ended up being our earliest wake up call for the kids. I think they were both up around 6:45 or so but we were okay with that because we knew we didn't want to be too late leaving the hotel so we went ahead and got up, started packing up, got dressed, and headed down to breakfast. We were only in this hotel one night but we managed to catch the one breakfast that Steven isn't a fan of. Trust me. He knows his Hampton Inn breakfasts. He has the rotation committed to memory with how much he has been traveling as of late and this is the one he isn't into. We managed to get everyone fed though and then cleaned up our stuff, packed up the car, and drove away.
Instead of heading home immediately though, we had plans to hit up one more beach. Why go North towards home when you can go South towards Key Biscayne (not really considered a "Florida Key" for any of my unfamiliar friends but rather just a part of Miami basically). Our drive down was as expected. Some traffic off and on through Miami but nothing out of the norm. We stopped at Subway on the way down to pick up subs (obviously) and then went over to Winn Dixie to grab some fruit and cheese popcorn to go with our sandwiches. After that, we were off to Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park (hereafter referred to as Lighthouse Beach... because it has a lighthouse... we are super creative around here and the real name takes too long to type and say everytime). Lighthouse Beach sits right at the end of Key Biscayne and is super calm and awesome. I looked it up and it is protected by a reef that sits about 6 miles out so that keeps the waves to a significant minimum. Side note: Find out if we can snorkel around those... This is Will's type of beach for sure. Anything without the crashing waves makes him so much more comfortable so much faster. Kenzie loves it too and as soon as we were parked and setting up on the beach, she was already in the water. Will waited for us to walk out with him but he didn't even need to be picked up at this beach. Score! My back got a break.
It was obvious that the tide was going out so we went as far as we could until we were basically sitting almost on top of the weeds that were out there and were still only in chest deep water when sitting down. By the time we left, the weeds were showing at the top of the water. The tide went WAY out while we were there. Steven basically spent about an hour moving around the area we were sitting in to try to find deeper water. Both kids were more than willing to walk in and out of the water without help because it was so magnificently clear and calm. They spent a long time playing at the water's edge with their buckets and shovels. The best part was watching them try to "empty the ocean" as Kenzie put it. She wanted me to take a bucket and start working on the ocean farther out while she emptied what was at the shoreline. I'm pretty sure that she was kidding. Will seemed more serious about it.
Eventually we decided to get out of the amazing water and bring down the cooler to eat lunch. It was funny. As we were talking earlier in the morning about having a picnic Kenzie asked us, "We are going to eat on the beach right? We have to eat on the beach." This kid is definitely ours. Why leave the beach when you have the best view in town right there under the tent? Steven and Kenzie shared a foot-long Italian BMT while I had a spicy Italian. Will ate an uncrustable. However, he did it as he stood in the water because we couldn't get him to leave it. We had our fruit and popcorn as well as finished off the cookies we have been working on for a week and then noticed that everyone around us was packing up and heading out. We knew a storm looked to be brewing back over Miami but we realized that it was getting darker and much closer to us. It looked fierce. It seriously looked like one of the worst storms that either Steven or I could remember seeing lately. The radar looked even crazier and we realized that we needed to get moving. So, Steven and I cleaned everything up as quickly as possible and then realized that our kids were having such a great time at this beach that they were down in the water with no intentions to leave. We actually had to threaten them to get them out of the water and off the beach. We washed them off and got under the overhang of the bathroom where we planned to change clothes right as the rain started. It wasn't too hard at first so we tried to make a break for it but then it started to pour. We tried to wait it out some but eventually had to just load the kids up in the car in the pouring rain. The only real downfall was that I had forgotten to put a pull-up in the bag of clean clothes for Will so he had to get into the car without one because I couldn't run back and forth to get one with all the rain. Then he fell asleep before we even left the park. Needless to say, he peed during his 2 plus hour nap in the car. Oh well. We already knew that we would need to wash the car seats this weekend after we got home so this just solidified that. We tried to drive over to the lighthouse to see about checking it out some before leaving the park. Will is still too short to climb it but we didn't know if we could see the keeper's house or anything else. However, we didn't even get out of the car there though because the rain was still bad.
Like I said, Will was asleep before we left the park. Kenzie fell asleep about 30 minutes later and both kids slept all the way until we stopped in Fort Pierce. We hit the expected Miami traffic but the drive home was not fun at all. Over the course of the next 5 plus hours, we sat in standstill traffic three different times on the Turnpike. That doesn't happen often. We also drove on and off through rain for the duration of our drive. Sometimes it would be pouring and sometimes it was just a sprinkle but it rarely stopped. What should have been about a 4.25 hour trip took us about 5.5 hours overall. The kids did well though. They slept until our one and only stop and then we let them watch a Curious George DVD for the next hour and a half (it was a bunch of episodes one after the other) on the final leg of the trip. We knew we would be home too late to cook much of anything. When we asked the kids what they wanted, they kept saying hot dogs. They haven't had those in a while so we decided to stop at Steak n Shake on the way home just because it would be easy. They were really well behaved at dinner and ate everything they ordered. Once we got home, we unloaded the car, everyone showered, and the kids went right to bed. They were ready. It was an awesome trip. Kenzie said her favorite part was riding the luggage cart but that she also loved everything else we did. Will told me earlier that his favorite part was seeing the boats and sleeping in the hotels. Both kids have already asked about going back next year. We had such a blast. I'm ready to load up the car and do it all again.
Anyway, as far as today goes, this post should be fairly short and sweet because we spent the majority of our day driving. Today actually ended up being our earliest wake up call for the kids. I think they were both up around 6:45 or so but we were okay with that because we knew we didn't want to be too late leaving the hotel so we went ahead and got up, started packing up, got dressed, and headed down to breakfast. We were only in this hotel one night but we managed to catch the one breakfast that Steven isn't a fan of. Trust me. He knows his Hampton Inn breakfasts. He has the rotation committed to memory with how much he has been traveling as of late and this is the one he isn't into. We managed to get everyone fed though and then cleaned up our stuff, packed up the car, and drove away.
Instead of heading home immediately though, we had plans to hit up one more beach. Why go North towards home when you can go South towards Key Biscayne (not really considered a "Florida Key" for any of my unfamiliar friends but rather just a part of Miami basically). Our drive down was as expected. Some traffic off and on through Miami but nothing out of the norm. We stopped at Subway on the way down to pick up subs (obviously) and then went over to Winn Dixie to grab some fruit and cheese popcorn to go with our sandwiches. After that, we were off to Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park (hereafter referred to as Lighthouse Beach... because it has a lighthouse... we are super creative around here and the real name takes too long to type and say everytime). Lighthouse Beach sits right at the end of Key Biscayne and is super calm and awesome. I looked it up and it is protected by a reef that sits about 6 miles out so that keeps the waves to a significant minimum. Side note: Find out if we can snorkel around those... This is Will's type of beach for sure. Anything without the crashing waves makes him so much more comfortable so much faster. Kenzie loves it too and as soon as we were parked and setting up on the beach, she was already in the water. Will waited for us to walk out with him but he didn't even need to be picked up at this beach. Score! My back got a break.
It was obvious that the tide was going out so we went as far as we could until we were basically sitting almost on top of the weeds that were out there and were still only in chest deep water when sitting down. By the time we left, the weeds were showing at the top of the water. The tide went WAY out while we were there. Steven basically spent about an hour moving around the area we were sitting in to try to find deeper water. Both kids were more than willing to walk in and out of the water without help because it was so magnificently clear and calm. They spent a long time playing at the water's edge with their buckets and shovels. The best part was watching them try to "empty the ocean" as Kenzie put it. She wanted me to take a bucket and start working on the ocean farther out while she emptied what was at the shoreline. I'm pretty sure that she was kidding. Will seemed more serious about it.
Eventually we decided to get out of the amazing water and bring down the cooler to eat lunch. It was funny. As we were talking earlier in the morning about having a picnic Kenzie asked us, "We are going to eat on the beach right? We have to eat on the beach." This kid is definitely ours. Why leave the beach when you have the best view in town right there under the tent? Steven and Kenzie shared a foot-long Italian BMT while I had a spicy Italian. Will ate an uncrustable. However, he did it as he stood in the water because we couldn't get him to leave it. We had our fruit and popcorn as well as finished off the cookies we have been working on for a week and then noticed that everyone around us was packing up and heading out. We knew a storm looked to be brewing back over Miami but we realized that it was getting darker and much closer to us. It looked fierce. It seriously looked like one of the worst storms that either Steven or I could remember seeing lately. The radar looked even crazier and we realized that we needed to get moving. So, Steven and I cleaned everything up as quickly as possible and then realized that our kids were having such a great time at this beach that they were down in the water with no intentions to leave. We actually had to threaten them to get them out of the water and off the beach. We washed them off and got under the overhang of the bathroom where we planned to change clothes right as the rain started. It wasn't too hard at first so we tried to make a break for it but then it started to pour. We tried to wait it out some but eventually had to just load the kids up in the car in the pouring rain. The only real downfall was that I had forgotten to put a pull-up in the bag of clean clothes for Will so he had to get into the car without one because I couldn't run back and forth to get one with all the rain. Then he fell asleep before we even left the park. Needless to say, he peed during his 2 plus hour nap in the car. Oh well. We already knew that we would need to wash the car seats this weekend after we got home so this just solidified that. We tried to drive over to the lighthouse to see about checking it out some before leaving the park. Will is still too short to climb it but we didn't know if we could see the keeper's house or anything else. However, we didn't even get out of the car there though because the rain was still bad.
Like I said, Will was asleep before we left the park. Kenzie fell asleep about 30 minutes later and both kids slept all the way until we stopped in Fort Pierce. We hit the expected Miami traffic but the drive home was not fun at all. Over the course of the next 5 plus hours, we sat in standstill traffic three different times on the Turnpike. That doesn't happen often. We also drove on and off through rain for the duration of our drive. Sometimes it would be pouring and sometimes it was just a sprinkle but it rarely stopped. What should have been about a 4.25 hour trip took us about 5.5 hours overall. The kids did well though. They slept until our one and only stop and then we let them watch a Curious George DVD for the next hour and a half (it was a bunch of episodes one after the other) on the final leg of the trip. We knew we would be home too late to cook much of anything. When we asked the kids what they wanted, they kept saying hot dogs. They haven't had those in a while so we decided to stop at Steak n Shake on the way home just because it would be easy. They were really well behaved at dinner and ate everything they ordered. Once we got home, we unloaded the car, everyone showered, and the kids went right to bed. They were ready. It was an awesome trip. Kenzie said her favorite part was riding the luggage cart but that she also loved everything else we did. Will told me earlier that his favorite part was seeing the boats and sleeping in the hotels. Both kids have already asked about going back next year. We had such a blast. I'm ready to load up the car and do it all again.
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