Girl's Trip to Florida

In the summer Isaac suggested that I should go on a girl's trip since he frequently has left me with the kids while he goes to conferences.  After a few times mentioning it I finally figured out why he was really suggesting it--he wanted to go on another trip to the farm, but since I didn't want to he needed to find a reason to get rid of me. :)

So I talked with Jamie and we tried to decide where we should go.  We asked Sarah if she would be interested in joining us, and she seemed really excited, so we decided to go to Florida.  So in August, Jamie and I took a girl's trip to Florida to visit Sarah.  Our flight arrived around midnight on a Thursday night.  Sarah was sweet enough to pick us up from the airport so late.  On Friday morning Gary's family went to Universal Studios with us.

It's always fun to go to Universal.  The Harry Potter section is just amazing.  Jamie and I were really worried that we were going to roast in Florida in August.  But in the morning we went on the Jurassic Park ride and got soaked.  We were damp until around lunch time.  Then we went on another ride like Rattlesnake Rapids and Splash Mountain (I can't remember what they were called) and got completely soaked.  Poor Sarah got the worst of it.  Every splash dumped right on top of her.  So we were freezing the whole day.  Jamie and I were tempted to buy sweatshirts from the Harry Potter stores just to stay warm.

 We ate dinner at the Leaky Cauldron.  We tried lots of different foods and desserts and it was delicious.  Jamie and I shared a stew because we were still completely freezing.

I let each of my nephews pick out a treat from Honeydukes for us to share.  The gummy slugs were pretty cool.

We stayed at the park until closing so we could see the water show where they projected lights and pictures onto fountains that would explode to the music.  It was pretty cool.

Then the girls went to stay the night at one of the Universal hotels, Cabana Bay.  Unfortunately we didn't get there until around 10 pm, so we didn't have time to do much at the hotel.  We went for a quick dip in the hot tub, and then went to bed.

The next morning we woke up really early to drive to Crystal River to swim with manatees and go for an airboat ride.  We put on our damp swimming suits from hot tubing the night before, and we were freezing once again.  On the drive to the coast, it was pouring rain.  And I got a call telling us the airboat ride had to be cancelled due to storms on the water.  But fortunately we were still able to go to the manatee place.

We got dressed in wet suits and boarded a boat that would drive us around until we found a manatee.  We were all worried that we wouldn't see any because it wasn't manatee season.  Usually hundreds of manatees come to this area in the winter months because the spring in the river keeps the water at 72 degrees.  But in the summer they venture out into the Gulf of Mexico.

I was super excited to swim with the manatees because they are endangered, and I had never been snorkeling before.  On our boat ride we saw a guy on a paddle board that looked just like Captain Jack Sparrow.

So our driver and guide found 2 manatees and we got in the water to go see them.  The water was only 3 or 4 feet deep, but we had to float like a starfish with a pool noodle under our arms so we didn't disturb the silt on the bottom of the river.  We weren't allowed to touch the manatees.  But once when I was looking at one of the manatees, the other swam directly below me.  I tried to swim away from it and very lightly brushed it with one of my fingers.

Snorkeling was cool.  At first it was a little claustrophobic, and the first few breaths were scary hoping that the snorkel would actually work.  But once we felt safe about breathing underwater it was really relaxing to swim with half your face in the water.  It was super easy to float like that.

The guides told us that manatees are like "swimming potatoes" during our training session.  And they really were.  They are just really gentile, fat, animals.  But it was really fun to see them.

Then we went back to Gary and Sarah's house and tried some yummy donuts we picked up on the way home.  The next day was Sunday, so we went to church and just hung out with Gary and his family.

On Monday morning we drove out to the Kennedy Space Center for a few hours before our flight home.  To be honest, I wasn't super excited about the Space Center (I'm not big on museums).  But it was actually pretty interesting.  We started with a bus tour around the facility and saw the launchpads where they shoot the rockets from.  And at each building we stopped at there were some interesting videos that taught me stuff that I never would have learned from reading plaques.

I just think it's really weird that there was a whole race to the moon decades ago, and then once we got there the space craze just kind of died off.  So I still think the moon landing is a hoax. ;)

But then Jamie and I had to go back to the airport to fly home.  My dad let us borrow his Bose noise-cancelling headphones, and they were awesome.  I need to get some.  And flying without kids is sooooo nice.  I was able to watch a movie and read my book in peace and quiet.

It was a really fun trip and good for me to get away and have a break from being a mom.  I think I should go on a trip like that every year.