Ocala State Park

Today we headed an hour to a park that had a zoo, glass bottom boat tour, and little shops. Well apparently the state parks department took ownership and has since removed the animals :-(  Everything was new to us so it wasn't a huge deal to me or Jake and we enjoyed the boat tour. The tour guide was hilarious! I'd never seen a gator or turtles 'o plenty in my life! 

Me and my trees :-) 

All female turtles are named Murtle  Lol

We ate at Cici's pizza that night. Its a buffet style pizza parlor with no shortage of anything pizza. Whew! There was also a balloon artist and since Jake has discovered Star Wars, he asked for a Light Saber. 

The heat/humidity really wears heavily on any energy level so we retired to building Hero Factory guys and watching old Home videos of Aunt Kelly (sleepover!), Daddy and Uncle JP during Christmas get togethers. I was happy to be a part of that special moment. :-) 

Florida Part 2!

I dropped my parents off at the Southwest Florida Int. Airport and then Jake and I headed North to Orlando to spend a few days with Kevin's Parents! They have been full time RVing for 8 years with no signs of stopping until they both started having some medical problems that hinders their on-the-road lifestyle, for now. They've stayed at this nice park for quite a while, since Thanksgiving, actually. What's important is getting things fixed and getting them fixed the right way! Unfortunately, it hasn't been right away but they're managing with help of some helpful neighbors. One day(hopefully soon), they can get out of Florida and breathe the open air and no humidity!  Central Florida in June is like a pizza oven haha. Thank the Lord for not 1, but 2 big pools we were able to enjoy before the daily rain storm invaded :-) 

We arrived safe 'n sound as the clouds rolled in but we knew to follow Papa's truck to the site.  The plan was to head to Toys R Us for some birthday shopping for Jake and unfortunately we went to 3 places that didn't have what we were looking for. Wow GPS and traffic can suck it in Orlando on a Friday night! Holy cow that was frustrating for all! We decided to ditch the effort and head to Miller Alehouse for a fantastic meal we were all craving! I had just about a whole pizza, Jake had spaghetti n meatballs, and Grandma and Papa both had the Cobb Salad. We headed to the homestead and visited before turning in for the night.

The next morning, the neighbors (Barb and......?) came over for a wonderful broccoli quiche, fruit salad, and coffee. They were headed to Oregon to take care of family business later that day so Peggy invited them over. Such lovely people who are super easy to talk with! 

After breakfast, we attempted another Birthday run, to none other than the circle store (Target). Well wouldn't you know it they had what we were looking for! Now we know :-\ 

Paul drove the neighbors to the airport and we headed to the pool! Jake got to use the squirt gun but I feel Grandma enjoyed herself more hahah

Quick note: Happy Birthday Kevin! Wish you were here enjoying Florida with us! Congratulations on the promotion at work though! You deserve it! Show you-know-who hell!

Happy 5th Birthday Jake!

Today we headed to Captiva Island to tour another outdoor adventure, but it was under construction until October. Instead we went to the Shell Museum and learned about different species that have been found on the 3rd most popular beach in the world to 'Shell'. There was a little scavenger hunt for Jake to do so we had fun with that. His prize was of course a shell and also a coloring book. You can't take shells that have anything living in them and its amazing what huge things are below us and have no idea until you step on a large conch! Goggles for me!

Sailors Valentines (can you imagine putting those shells together?)

Next stop was birthday lunch at Doc Fords on the island, mojitos included! Jake really doesn't like his picture taken that much anymore and also doesn't like to be sang 'Happy birthday' to either. Strange (he must get that from his Father)

Hero Factory Birthday!

Its hard to believe he is 5! He is a great, sweet, funny boy who follows the rules but still timid about new things and also isn't afraid to speak his mind (to me at least). Happy to have a child that is go with the flow and flexible.  He is also like those AT&T commercials where the kids talk nonstop about incredibly imaginary things. Right now he loves building anything and wants to create stories of good guys and bad guys. Youtube seems to be a current interest where he draws inspiration from another kid who likes to build hero factory and skylander things. Cracks me up! Love you Jake!

We decided to go out for dinner on the water. I had mussels and they were fantastic as usual. Jake had a lovely dessert :-)  Tomorrow we were all heading North; my parents to Detroit and us to Orlando!

Corkscrew Audobon Society

Today we left the condo at 7 am(!) to head towards Naples that boasted of a 2.5 mile boardwalk into part of the Everglades. I absolutely love that kind of stuff! Every time I'd peer over the border, mom and I would expect to see a gator. Well we did end up seeing one the last 20 minutes of our walk, thanks to the Audubon guides :-)  I watch a lot of dark shows where people are murdered in bayou's/forests at night so I was very happy to 1) not be killed and 2) be there during the day. We saw a fishing spider that was about 8 inches long/wide on a tree that actually goes on the water to eat bugs, not the traditional web-spinner. He was the biggest thing! Oy! Then we saw a baby gator and green tree frog, along with about 20 lizards and spiders. 

Look! My ass is a national monument! Haha 

Florida Vacation Pt 1

Jake and I road-tripped down to Florida, hoping Kev could join us but alas, duty called.  He ended up taking over the store so that's good, but still weird to be on vacation for 12 days without Daddy! We did a huge 13 hour trek to Gainesville so that made the second day super easy and short to Fort Myers Beach.  The place we stayed at was called the Mariner Boathouse, so the condos were made to feel like we were on a ship, with bunk beds and all :-)  As you can see he thoroughly enjoyed the top bunk after a few tries at the ladder. 

We had fun lounging, jumping in the waves, using goggles to basically be a fish, and a very relaxing time. 

Frazier History Museum and Louisville Slugger Factory and Museum

Today we ventured to Museum Row as part of the 'I'm going to kindergarten' program.  This museum focused on the history of Louisville pre-Revolutionary War, early weapons, mythical creatures, knights and their armor, and the freedom of slaves. Jake is still too young to really gather all the information displayed but he is definitely more interested in things of the past. I'm so excited for him to start reading! Unfortunately, he doesn't have a huge interestest yet but I'm hoping that will change this year. He sees me reading all the time so I'm hoping that sparks  things up. Jake was afraid of the special exhibit they has of mythical creatures and clung to me tightly; we couldn't even make it around the corner! Ah well its only temporary and next time if he has a field trip, he will have peer pressure :-) 

He did love this dragon!

I want this cute little pixie!

While we were there, a Baptist choir was performing old hymns and it made me want to attend their church just for the music! Something about southern Baptists and big voices! 

Well we made it through the museum in about an hour and a half and I really wasn't anxious to go back home yet. The Louisville slugger factory and museum was right across the street so we opted for that since the first museum was free. :-)   

Jake was free there too! We had a funny tour guide and were able to hold a bunch of bats and see how they were made etc. When the 30 minute tour was over we both received mini-bats with the slugger logo on it. Jake said, "Now daddy and I can play baseball!" Granted he has a regular plastic bat, oh well, at least he was thinking of Kevin :-) 

Now no trip is complete without a form of Lego's in this house..... And why would a museum be any different?! There was a guy who at the age of 7 started building replica's of people houses; namely, his parents! He had the blue prints drawn up and built a to-scale house of legos! Well after he went to engineering school at MIT, he now does that for a living and this particular exhibit was other cities baseball fields! Pretty remarkable!

Wrigley field

Its impossible to see the lyrics of 'Take me out to the ball game' in this picture but HOW Cool?!

 (Celebrity spotting) That boy is Macaulay Culkin's brother, Kieran

By then we were museum'd out and hungry for Mexican :-). So we headed to my favorite Senior Iguanas for the most amazing nachos ever!

Jeffersontown Funfest

We live in the town of Jeffersontown, aka J-Town. Its a little suburb East of Downtown that a lovely sense of community. At the Tank park, they held some bounce house attractions, free hot dogs, chips, sodas, and at the end a viewing of Madagascar 3 on the big screen. There were about 4 kids from his preschool so Jake was excited to see them :-)  We brought along the blanket and chairs for the movie and explores the little attractions they had set up. The weather was perfect; not too hot or cold. Then when the sun went down it became a little chilly(duh). The month of June came with a blaze of 90 so it was a welcome change.