Golly, this ol’ blog has taken a hit with all the packing and the moving and the unpacking and the yadda, yadda, yadda. But I’m back! With vacation pictures!
We’ve come to rely on a March or April sun-break to get us over the final hump of Seattle’s eight-month rainy season, opting for a long weekend in Santa Monica the past three years for our Spring doses of Vitamin D. But this year we made grander plans, booking a trip with my mom and dad for a week in Florida to catch some rays and catch up with the extended family I haven’t seen in years.
We were up well before dawn to catch our non-stop flight to Tampa and checked into our beach-front cottage late that afternoon. We shed our sweaters and our shoes before we’d even unlocked our front door, eager to see how the Gulf waters felt on our feet.
Answer:Â they felt GOOD.
Seriously, you guys, those past few weeks of rain and gray skies had been rough. We were sun-starved.
We joined my parents for dinner that night at one of the multitude of beach bars in the neighborhood and then headed right back out to our happy place.
Shane kindly offered to get a tuckered-out Juliette ready for bed while I went for a sunset walk and slipped quite solidly into vacation mode. I needed this.
We woke up Wednesday morning eager to be out and about in the 80-degree sunshine. Shane and I took turns going for long morning runs along the beach while Juliette ran shorter laps from the water to the beach chairs and back. SO MUCH BLUE!
We hit up the smoothie stand and the playground and then met my parents and aunt at my grandma’s place, a memory care home she settled into last year. My grandma has been dealing with progressing dementia for the past few years and I had prepared myself for the fact that she likely would not know me as her granddaughter. She didn’t. But still, she was as kind and welcoming as ever, and took great pride in showing me around, touring us past the gazebo and the activity studio and the resident one-eyed cat, Winky. It was hard, having to limit our conversation to the immediate present and roll with Grandma’s frequent confusion, but there was comfort in seeing glimmers of the same thoughtful Alice I’ve always known.
We spent the afternoon bouncing from the beach near our house to the pool at my mom and dad’s condo down the road.
I accidentally left Juliette’s trusty Giants cap back home, so we grabbed this fancy straw hat at Target, which ended up popping off every time the slightest bit of wind of blew by. But dang, she worked it for those first few minutes…
Once we were all pooped from running in the sand and splashing in the waves, we rested up with…a trip to my mom and dad’s pool. This kid’s got stamina!
We closed out the day with wings at Abes and a quick peek at the sunset. Vay-cay 2018 was going swimmingly.
We met up with Shane’s uncle and his wife in Bradenton on Thursday morning for brunch and caught up on their latest Florida haps.
And then spent some time at the Riverwalk Splash Park, because we hadn’t yet checked that form of water play off our vacation list.
These springtime trips are a splurge for us, but the joy that spills forth from water and warmth has assured us that this is time and money well-spent.
My goofy little tree-hugger…
Photo cred a la Jules!
We drove along St. Pete Beach on the way back to our house and were detoured along the waterway side by some construction. I kept my eyes peeled for pelicans, wanting to show Juliette the real-life version of the birds we love on Finding Nemo. Found some!
We perched on the waterfront for awhile to watch the birds and have a snack. These are the moments I relished in a relatively plan-free week.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach, playing fetch with the ocean and challenging the waves to dual after dual. Jules was knocked off her feet once or twice, but just laughed hysterically and popped back up – these warm, gentle gulf waters were made for four-year-olds! As were the pineapple-flamingo goggles we grabbed at Marshalls on a whim last month.
“Come at me, ocean!”
I took a late afternoon stroll and had stretches of beach entirely to myself.
We ate dinner at the house and then desserted at John’s Pass with giant mint-chip ice cream cones.
My parents popped over in the evening to catch a particularly glowy sunset with us.
Juliette coached my mom on the appropriate way to jump over each cresting wave. She got some impressive height!
It’s a magical world we live in, isn’t it?
