Vacation -- all I ever wanted ...
What's a sure antidote to the short days, rainy skies, and cold temperatures of December in Portland? A trip down to the Sunshine state! This past December, the family made the second annual Christmas trip down to visit Nana in lovely and swank Jupiter, Florida. The trip was long but went okay. Flying through Atlanta rather than Houston was an improvement.
We were there for sixteen days and the weather was outstanding for fourteen of them. The typical day was about 80 degrees and mostly sunny. Every day we went swimming in Nana's pool at least once. Here's a video of Frost jumping in.
This year we arrived almost a full week before Christmas so it was a long stretch for the kids before they got to tear into the presents and increase their inventory of available toy about two or three fold.
The club at Nana's community offers several dinners for families around the holidays. We went to two of them and had a great time. The first featured a balloon artist and face painter and the second had a balloon artist (better than the first one) and some animals from an area wildlife rescue foundation.
The great weather meant that we got to spend some time at the beach. The water was plenty warm for playing in the surf. Last year, Lily was intimidated by the waves but this trip she was out in the little breakers playing quite a bit. She even rode the boogie board in a few times.
We visited the Bush Wildlife refuge and saw the animals. They have a great collection of rescued wildlife and some good interpretive shows. We also went to the Loggerhead turtle rescue center and saw some big sea turtles. Here's a picture of Frost and I studying some turtle eggs.
One of the highlights of the trip for the kids was our trip to the Lion Country Safari. As the name implies, they had some lions -- along with a bunch of other wildlife, most of it grazing animals. Do you know how big ostriches are? Really big. Realy, really big. Giraffes are pretty big too and I got to feed one. Yes, their tongues are very long and kind of raspy like a cat. They had some rides and other things in the stroll around part of the park.
Nicholette got to go to the gym and take a bunch of yoga and step classes. She also had some spa time to enjoy. I shipped my bike to Florida so I took a number of very enjoyable rides -- all of which went along Jupiter Island, home of Tiger Woods among other big wigs.
While it was nice to head home to Vancouver, we were all sad to leave Florida. Oh, yeah, the landing in Portland? The worst I've ever had. It was bumpy and lumpy and scary.
We were there for sixteen days and the weather was outstanding for fourteen of them. The typical day was about 80 degrees and mostly sunny. Every day we went swimming in Nana's pool at least once. Here's a video of Frost jumping in.
This year we arrived almost a full week before Christmas so it was a long stretch for the kids before they got to tear into the presents and increase their inventory of available toy about two or three fold.
The club at Nana's community offers several dinners for families around the holidays. We went to two of them and had a great time. The first featured a balloon artist and face painter and the second had a balloon artist (better than the first one) and some animals from an area wildlife rescue foundation.
The great weather meant that we got to spend some time at the beach. The water was plenty warm for playing in the surf. Last year, Lily was intimidated by the waves but this trip she was out in the little breakers playing quite a bit. She even rode the boogie board in a few times.
We visited the Bush Wildlife refuge and saw the animals. They have a great collection of rescued wildlife and some good interpretive shows. We also went to the Loggerhead turtle rescue center and saw some big sea turtles. Here's a picture of Frost and I studying some turtle eggs.
One of the highlights of the trip for the kids was our trip to the Lion Country Safari. As the name implies, they had some lions -- along with a bunch of other wildlife, most of it grazing animals. Do you know how big ostriches are? Really big. Realy, really big. Giraffes are pretty big too and I got to feed one. Yes, their tongues are very long and kind of raspy like a cat. They had some rides and other things in the stroll around part of the park.
Nicholette got to go to the gym and take a bunch of yoga and step classes. She also had some spa time to enjoy. I shipped my bike to Florida so I took a number of very enjoyable rides -- all of which went along Jupiter Island, home of Tiger Woods among other big wigs.
While it was nice to head home to Vancouver, we were all sad to leave Florida. Oh, yeah, the landing in Portland? The worst I've ever had. It was bumpy and lumpy and scary.
posted by Brooke Hoyer at 7:55 PM
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