Last weekend we made a quick trip to South Florida. Our reason for going down was to attend the second birthday party of one adorable toddler. We decided to add a day in again this year like we did last year and take some time to do something fun since we were already out of town.
We picked Kenzie up from school on Friday afternoon, went by the house for a potty break, and then immediately left for South Florida. Will had fallen asleep in the car while we were getting gas before waiting to pick Kenzie up. We debated for a bit whether to wake him up and make him potty or just let him continue to sleep and risk an accident or having to race to a service plaza so he could potty when he woke up. We elected to let him sleep which both worked out well and backfired later in the day but we at least made it without bathroom accident incident. He has gotten so great at traveling without pull-ups. Anyway, after a quick stop to change Kenzie's shoes and let everyone potty, we were on our way. Will woke up about an hour into our trip and just rode in silence for a long time. It was nice because Kenzie was doing more than enough chatting for both of them. We ended up making it all the way to the Fort Pierce Service Place (about 2 plus hours down the road) before we stopped for a quick dinner and bathroom break. We ate a quick dinner at Wendy's and then set off again to make the remaining almost two hour trip to Sunrise and our hotel. We decided to let the kids watch Frozen for the rest of the trip and it ended just before we got off the road at the hotel. We have stayed at this hotel more than once before and we like it. It is located super close to the Sawgrass Expressway which works well and is clean and has friendly employees. Plus, Hampton Inns have breakfast which is something we try to find in all our hotels. Since our kids are not often huge on breakfast foods anyway, having a "free" breakfast in a hotel is our best bet. We checked in quickly and found our room. We got the kids settled, had a snack that we had picked up at the gas station on the corner, and set them up on the sofa bed to try to get them to sleep. This is where Will's nap backfired. The two of them giggled and carried on for about an hour. I think Steven and I both fell asleep at some point while they were awake and still chatting. While adorable that they get along like this... it's not so cute at 10:30 when the rest of us are exhausted and just want to sleep. Plus, we knew well enough that despite not going to bed at 10:30 or later... they were still going to be awake by 7 at the latest. This isn't our first rodeo. Finally, after some threats and taking their toys they brought away, they settled down and we all got to sleep.
Sure enough the next morning... both kids were awake before 7. We didn't rush down to breakfast though and took our time taking showers before heading down to eat. Both kids ate pretty well and after brushing teeth and all that fun stuff, we headed out. We first drove over to look at the house that Steven grew up in. We do this anytime we are in town. It has changed some since when his family lived there but not much over the last few years. We decided to stop at the neighborhood playground and let the kids play for a bit. The kids were having a great time... and then Will tripped and fell. He managed to bang his chin on the inside of a plastic tube the kids can climb through. He was crying and I basically started by telling him he was fine. Then he walked towards me and I realized he was bleeding down his neck. Oops. Guess his crying was warranted. I can be somewhat blase about the kids falling. They do it a lot and usually it is nothing. So, I wasn't worried initially until I realized how much blood there was. We finally got a good look at him and realized that he split his chin open pretty significantly. We actually spent the next hour or so debating whether we needed to find an urgent care to see if he needed stitches. Eventually, he calmed down and we were able to check him out better. We eventually decided to get better bandaids than I had in my first aid kit I keep in the car (an essential when you have kids) since the neoprene ones I had didn't hold that well on his chin. We got some medicine and a bandaid on his chin and decided to make sure it stopped bleeding. If it did, then we figured we would not worry about stitches and just treat it. If it scars (and I think it will), it isn't anywhere that anyone would see and he will have a story to tell. (Random note... I have a matching scar on my chin from falling at about the same age so we match. Haha!) We also didn't want to do an urgent care because we were about to head to the party we came down specifically for. Will was doing fine so we headed towards the park for the party. The party was a lot of fun. The kids ran around and played frisbee and soccer with all the other kids (and some adults). They had a blast. We had fun talking to some people we don't see very often. After some yummy food and cake, we decided it would be best if we headed out since it was getting late and we had some plans still that afternoon.
We ran by the hotel to pick up shoes for Steven and then went out to John U Lloyd State Park. This is the beach that his family visited all the time when he was younger and I have been to a handful of times. We realized that they changed the name of the park which was weird and made us feel bad for John U Lloyd. Haha! The kids both fell asleep on the way to the beach but we were able to wake them up when we got there. Waking up Will often causes him to be in a mood and that combined with the loud waves set him off. He refused to remove his shoes to walk on the beach and made me hold his hand the entire way. Really, he ended up being the only smart one out of us. We decided to head down towards the jetty so we could watch the cruise ships leave and that meant walking over a ton of rocks and shells. I should have pitched a fit and kept my shoes on too. We made it down to the jetty just in time to see the ships start coming out. The kids were amazed at the size of them. We have talked about taking them on a short cruise in a couple of years when they will be old enough to really enjoy it and I think they are going to LOVE it. We watched four different ships leave port and waved to all of them before heading back to the car. Really, I took the kids into the closest parking lot and made Steven walk back to get the car. It was way faster than having them walk over all the rocks and everything.
After that we decided to meet up with our friends for dinner. Initially we had plans to go to dinner nearby and then go to Jaxon's for ice cream since we haven't ever taken the kids but we decided we just were not in the mood to deal with the wait and crowds that are always synonymous with Jaxon's. Plus, it was getting cooler and while I like ice cream when it is cold outside, my family may not agree with that. So, we met up with our friends and decided on a pretty yummy pizza place. It was also good to get to spend more time with them and their little guy while we were in town. We went back to the hotel after that to turn in because we knew we wanted to be up and out of the hotel fairly early the next morning. The kids (thankfully) fell asleep much quicker and easier than the night before. They were both pretty tired so we expected it.
Everyone was up again by 7 the next day which was perfectly fine because we wanted to get out. After breakfast, we went to Publix to pick up subs and other picnic materials since we knew there was no food where we were headed. Then we checked out of the hotel and were on our way. Last year we went to Zoo Miami the day after the party but over the summer we started talking about the possibility to of taking the kids to Everglades National Park when we were down in the winter. We figured it was a great time and although some things were still closed due to Hurricane Irma damage, it wasn't too bad. The drive down was fairly easy. We decided to enter through the Homestead entrance as it was the best fit for our plans for the day. We stopped at the Visitor's Center first and checked out the exhibits. Outside the center we saw our first gator of the day which made the kids pretty excited. They liked playing with the bones in the Visitor's Center and when we stopped to get a map, the ranger gave them each Junior Ranger workbooks that were geared towards their ages. They loved that. The best part was the BINGO game on the front of the workbook where they could mark off items they saw during our visit.
After that stop we drove into the park itself and headed towards Royal Palm. This is the stop I remember from the one time I have been with Steven and his family way back before kiddos. We decided to walk the longer of the two boardwalks. It was 0.8 miles and we knew it was the one that would offer more views of wildlife. Kenzie did amazing the entire way. Will was sort of tired and I think getting a bit hangry so he was good but kept wanting to be picked up. Neither of us would do it and he made the walk. Both kids were most excited when they would see another item on their BINGO game and would get to mark it off. We elected to not do the other walk (which was 0.4 miles) as it was mostly for flora in lieu of fauna and the animals are really what kept the kids' attention longer. We went back to the car with plans to start the 38 mile drive to the end of the national park. Initially we thought we might stop somewhere along the way to have lunch but Will fell asleep almost immediately so we just kept driving. Kenzie had a blast on the way doing a decoder game in her workbook. She did amazingly well with it. It sort of impressed both of us. We also realized while making that drive that she is seriously ready for a vacation like this. Visiting National Parks or monuments. While both kids are always somewhat interested in things like this, Kenzie is fully engaged and actually learning and retaining the information now. She wanted me to read her EVERY single thing in the Visitor's Center earlier to learn all about the Everglades. She wanted to do the workbook activities non-stop. Not just color the pictures. She was actively engaged. And we loved it. We will wait a couple years to take any big trips that would have activities like this all the time just to make sure Will is old enough to be engaged but she is so ready so our plans are to start adding in as much of this type of activity as possible when we travel. It won't all be beaches anymore. Which is sad and exciting at the same time.
Anyway, Will slept the entire way to Flamingo which is the end of the line as far as the park goes. Unfortunately, we had to wake him up instead of him waking up naturally. And that wasn't good. He was "throwing chairs" as we like to say. Once at the beach he had a fit and kept asking us to hand him a chair so he could throw it. That was his mood and now we use that phrase to describe when he gets a bit out of control and upset. He was crying because his legs couldn't walk him anyway because they were tired... but I was holding him. It's basically those points in time when he doesn't know if he is coming or going. We initially found a picnic bench in the shade but with the cooler temps and wind, it wasn't going to work. The kids were shivering. We were just about to go eat lunch in our car when I saw a table in the sun. That was much better. The kids ate okay. Nothing to write home about but it was such a pretty view for our picnic. Being at Flamingo is like taking a time warp. The place is stuck in the 70s. And it has endured some damage over the years from various hurricanes. It appears some of it was never fixed. It was a bit sad. I hope they can do some renovations in the coming years. We walked around some but there wasn't a lot to see because so much was still closed. Because of Irma, we had to wander all around to find a bathroom before we headed out. The plus to that was that we were able to see about 4 or 5 manatees in the marina which made the kids excited. Then, while we were waiting to use the bathroom a man came running over to ask us if we wanted to see the American crocodile. I was looking for one the entire time we were at Flamingo and was so excited to see on sunning on the shore across the canal area. So glad he pointed him out or I would have never noticed him. He was so well camouflaged over on the bank.
Eventually we headed out. On the way back we stopped at one more walk along the way. Just as we were getting out of the car, Kenzie announced, "My tooth fell out!!" Finally! That thing was hanging on all weekend by a thread... er... nerve? I wanted to pull it earlier in the day but she wouldn't let me. We also told her earlier in the weekend to try to not mess with it because we didn't think the tooth fairy visited in hotels. Thankfully she was able to hand it to me and it made the trip home to be left for the tooth fairy. She looks so cute with her little gap in her teeth now, too. We walked around one more boardwalk but it was mostly plants again. It was a short (0.4 mile) walk though and then we were on our way out. Before leaving entirely, we stopped at the Visitor's Center one more time because we promised the kids they could stamp their workbooks before we left with the National Park stamp. I had already put it in our passport book, but they wanted the stamps on their books.
After that, we were finally on our way. The drive home was LONG. We were coming from Homestead (plus had already driven 35-40 minutes just to exit the park) so it was quite the trip. It took us about 6.5 hours with stops. We had to stop once for a potty break because Will said he had to go. Then we stopped again at Fort Pierce Service Plaza for dinner. Wendy's again. So exciting. We were limited though and didn't want to leave the turnpike to eat. We The kids watched Finding Nemo and Veggietales on the way home and we made it home around 8:30. The kids went to bed almost immediately. Thankfully Kenzie didn't have school the following day because of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day so we didn't have to worry too much about her being in bed early.
It was another fun trip. Each time we do something like this with the kids we seem to learn something new. New tips and tricks for our family and we add on another thing we want to do with the kiddos. We are really looking forward to our trip this year because we hope to add on more interactive things with the kids. Plus, it's along the coast so we get to hit a beach or two. ;)
We picked Kenzie up from school on Friday afternoon, went by the house for a potty break, and then immediately left for South Florida. Will had fallen asleep in the car while we were getting gas before waiting to pick Kenzie up. We debated for a bit whether to wake him up and make him potty or just let him continue to sleep and risk an accident or having to race to a service plaza so he could potty when he woke up. We elected to let him sleep which both worked out well and backfired later in the day but we at least made it without bathroom accident incident. He has gotten so great at traveling without pull-ups. Anyway, after a quick stop to change Kenzie's shoes and let everyone potty, we were on our way. Will woke up about an hour into our trip and just rode in silence for a long time. It was nice because Kenzie was doing more than enough chatting for both of them. We ended up making it all the way to the Fort Pierce Service Place (about 2 plus hours down the road) before we stopped for a quick dinner and bathroom break. We ate a quick dinner at Wendy's and then set off again to make the remaining almost two hour trip to Sunrise and our hotel. We decided to let the kids watch Frozen for the rest of the trip and it ended just before we got off the road at the hotel. We have stayed at this hotel more than once before and we like it. It is located super close to the Sawgrass Expressway which works well and is clean and has friendly employees. Plus, Hampton Inns have breakfast which is something we try to find in all our hotels. Since our kids are not often huge on breakfast foods anyway, having a "free" breakfast in a hotel is our best bet. We checked in quickly and found our room. We got the kids settled, had a snack that we had picked up at the gas station on the corner, and set them up on the sofa bed to try to get them to sleep. This is where Will's nap backfired. The two of them giggled and carried on for about an hour. I think Steven and I both fell asleep at some point while they were awake and still chatting. While adorable that they get along like this... it's not so cute at 10:30 when the rest of us are exhausted and just want to sleep. Plus, we knew well enough that despite not going to bed at 10:30 or later... they were still going to be awake by 7 at the latest. This isn't our first rodeo. Finally, after some threats and taking their toys they brought away, they settled down and we all got to sleep.
Sure enough the next morning... both kids were awake before 7. We didn't rush down to breakfast though and took our time taking showers before heading down to eat. Both kids ate pretty well and after brushing teeth and all that fun stuff, we headed out. We first drove over to look at the house that Steven grew up in. We do this anytime we are in town. It has changed some since when his family lived there but not much over the last few years. We decided to stop at the neighborhood playground and let the kids play for a bit. The kids were having a great time... and then Will tripped and fell. He managed to bang his chin on the inside of a plastic tube the kids can climb through. He was crying and I basically started by telling him he was fine. Then he walked towards me and I realized he was bleeding down his neck. Oops. Guess his crying was warranted. I can be somewhat blase about the kids falling. They do it a lot and usually it is nothing. So, I wasn't worried initially until I realized how much blood there was. We finally got a good look at him and realized that he split his chin open pretty significantly. We actually spent the next hour or so debating whether we needed to find an urgent care to see if he needed stitches. Eventually, he calmed down and we were able to check him out better. We eventually decided to get better bandaids than I had in my first aid kit I keep in the car (an essential when you have kids) since the neoprene ones I had didn't hold that well on his chin. We got some medicine and a bandaid on his chin and decided to make sure it stopped bleeding. If it did, then we figured we would not worry about stitches and just treat it. If it scars (and I think it will), it isn't anywhere that anyone would see and he will have a story to tell. (Random note... I have a matching scar on my chin from falling at about the same age so we match. Haha!) We also didn't want to do an urgent care because we were about to head to the party we came down specifically for. Will was doing fine so we headed towards the park for the party. The party was a lot of fun. The kids ran around and played frisbee and soccer with all the other kids (and some adults). They had a blast. We had fun talking to some people we don't see very often. After some yummy food and cake, we decided it would be best if we headed out since it was getting late and we had some plans still that afternoon.
We ran by the hotel to pick up shoes for Steven and then went out to John U Lloyd State Park. This is the beach that his family visited all the time when he was younger and I have been to a handful of times. We realized that they changed the name of the park which was weird and made us feel bad for John U Lloyd. Haha! The kids both fell asleep on the way to the beach but we were able to wake them up when we got there. Waking up Will often causes him to be in a mood and that combined with the loud waves set him off. He refused to remove his shoes to walk on the beach and made me hold his hand the entire way. Really, he ended up being the only smart one out of us. We decided to head down towards the jetty so we could watch the cruise ships leave and that meant walking over a ton of rocks and shells. I should have pitched a fit and kept my shoes on too. We made it down to the jetty just in time to see the ships start coming out. The kids were amazed at the size of them. We have talked about taking them on a short cruise in a couple of years when they will be old enough to really enjoy it and I think they are going to LOVE it. We watched four different ships leave port and waved to all of them before heading back to the car. Really, I took the kids into the closest parking lot and made Steven walk back to get the car. It was way faster than having them walk over all the rocks and everything.
After that we decided to meet up with our friends for dinner. Initially we had plans to go to dinner nearby and then go to Jaxon's for ice cream since we haven't ever taken the kids but we decided we just were not in the mood to deal with the wait and crowds that are always synonymous with Jaxon's. Plus, it was getting cooler and while I like ice cream when it is cold outside, my family may not agree with that. So, we met up with our friends and decided on a pretty yummy pizza place. It was also good to get to spend more time with them and their little guy while we were in town. We went back to the hotel after that to turn in because we knew we wanted to be up and out of the hotel fairly early the next morning. The kids (thankfully) fell asleep much quicker and easier than the night before. They were both pretty tired so we expected it.
Everyone was up again by 7 the next day which was perfectly fine because we wanted to get out. After breakfast, we went to Publix to pick up subs and other picnic materials since we knew there was no food where we were headed. Then we checked out of the hotel and were on our way. Last year we went to Zoo Miami the day after the party but over the summer we started talking about the possibility to of taking the kids to Everglades National Park when we were down in the winter. We figured it was a great time and although some things were still closed due to Hurricane Irma damage, it wasn't too bad. The drive down was fairly easy. We decided to enter through the Homestead entrance as it was the best fit for our plans for the day. We stopped at the Visitor's Center first and checked out the exhibits. Outside the center we saw our first gator of the day which made the kids pretty excited. They liked playing with the bones in the Visitor's Center and when we stopped to get a map, the ranger gave them each Junior Ranger workbooks that were geared towards their ages. They loved that. The best part was the BINGO game on the front of the workbook where they could mark off items they saw during our visit.
After that stop we drove into the park itself and headed towards Royal Palm. This is the stop I remember from the one time I have been with Steven and his family way back before kiddos. We decided to walk the longer of the two boardwalks. It was 0.8 miles and we knew it was the one that would offer more views of wildlife. Kenzie did amazing the entire way. Will was sort of tired and I think getting a bit hangry so he was good but kept wanting to be picked up. Neither of us would do it and he made the walk. Both kids were most excited when they would see another item on their BINGO game and would get to mark it off. We elected to not do the other walk (which was 0.4 miles) as it was mostly for flora in lieu of fauna and the animals are really what kept the kids' attention longer. We went back to the car with plans to start the 38 mile drive to the end of the national park. Initially we thought we might stop somewhere along the way to have lunch but Will fell asleep almost immediately so we just kept driving. Kenzie had a blast on the way doing a decoder game in her workbook. She did amazingly well with it. It sort of impressed both of us. We also realized while making that drive that she is seriously ready for a vacation like this. Visiting National Parks or monuments. While both kids are always somewhat interested in things like this, Kenzie is fully engaged and actually learning and retaining the information now. She wanted me to read her EVERY single thing in the Visitor's Center earlier to learn all about the Everglades. She wanted to do the workbook activities non-stop. Not just color the pictures. She was actively engaged. And we loved it. We will wait a couple years to take any big trips that would have activities like this all the time just to make sure Will is old enough to be engaged but she is so ready so our plans are to start adding in as much of this type of activity as possible when we travel. It won't all be beaches anymore. Which is sad and exciting at the same time.
Anyway, Will slept the entire way to Flamingo which is the end of the line as far as the park goes. Unfortunately, we had to wake him up instead of him waking up naturally. And that wasn't good. He was "throwing chairs" as we like to say. Once at the beach he had a fit and kept asking us to hand him a chair so he could throw it. That was his mood and now we use that phrase to describe when he gets a bit out of control and upset. He was crying because his legs couldn't walk him anyway because they were tired... but I was holding him. It's basically those points in time when he doesn't know if he is coming or going. We initially found a picnic bench in the shade but with the cooler temps and wind, it wasn't going to work. The kids were shivering. We were just about to go eat lunch in our car when I saw a table in the sun. That was much better. The kids ate okay. Nothing to write home about but it was such a pretty view for our picnic. Being at Flamingo is like taking a time warp. The place is stuck in the 70s. And it has endured some damage over the years from various hurricanes. It appears some of it was never fixed. It was a bit sad. I hope they can do some renovations in the coming years. We walked around some but there wasn't a lot to see because so much was still closed. Because of Irma, we had to wander all around to find a bathroom before we headed out. The plus to that was that we were able to see about 4 or 5 manatees in the marina which made the kids excited. Then, while we were waiting to use the bathroom a man came running over to ask us if we wanted to see the American crocodile. I was looking for one the entire time we were at Flamingo and was so excited to see on sunning on the shore across the canal area. So glad he pointed him out or I would have never noticed him. He was so well camouflaged over on the bank.
Eventually we headed out. On the way back we stopped at one more walk along the way. Just as we were getting out of the car, Kenzie announced, "My tooth fell out!!" Finally! That thing was hanging on all weekend by a thread... er... nerve? I wanted to pull it earlier in the day but she wouldn't let me. We also told her earlier in the weekend to try to not mess with it because we didn't think the tooth fairy visited in hotels. Thankfully she was able to hand it to me and it made the trip home to be left for the tooth fairy. She looks so cute with her little gap in her teeth now, too. We walked around one more boardwalk but it was mostly plants again. It was a short (0.4 mile) walk though and then we were on our way out. Before leaving entirely, we stopped at the Visitor's Center one more time because we promised the kids they could stamp their workbooks before we left with the National Park stamp. I had already put it in our passport book, but they wanted the stamps on their books.
After that, we were finally on our way. The drive home was LONG. We were coming from Homestead (plus had already driven 35-40 minutes just to exit the park) so it was quite the trip. It took us about 6.5 hours with stops. We had to stop once for a potty break because Will said he had to go. Then we stopped again at Fort Pierce Service Plaza for dinner. Wendy's again. So exciting. We were limited though and didn't want to leave the turnpike to eat. We The kids watched Finding Nemo and Veggietales on the way home and we made it home around 8:30. The kids went to bed almost immediately. Thankfully Kenzie didn't have school the following day because of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day so we didn't have to worry too much about her being in bed early.
It was another fun trip. Each time we do something like this with the kids we seem to learn something new. New tips and tricks for our family and we add on another thing we want to do with the kiddos. We are really looking forward to our trip this year because we hope to add on more interactive things with the kids. Plus, it's along the coast so we get to hit a beach or two. ;)
Comments
Post a Comment