Cousin time in Florida

Ryan had some more meeting for work and this time they were in Orlando at Disney World.  Mars often picks good locations for meetings, and this time did not disappoint!  Seeing that I had a baby about 5 weeks prior, I didn't want to be left at home by myself with an almost-2-year-old and a newborn, so we decided to drive down and spend some time at Marc and Michelle's.  We got there Friday night, November 8th, and drove home on the 17th.  While Ryan went down to Orlando for his meetings for a few days, I stayed up at the Rasmussen's and then we all went down and met Ryan in Orlando for a day at Disney World.  It was a blast and I'm so glad we ended up going (I was tempted not to go since Claire's reflux was struggling and a 14 hour car ride sounded like torture, but it worked out great)!  Lucy had so much fun with her cousins and we both loved that having other people around for company and distractions.

Lucy was really upset because she wanted to be holding my hand, so Jackson volunteered since he was right next to her and she was completely satisfied again. (Nevermind the fact that we are in the car and Jackson is on the floor... we didn't go far).

 One night we watched Monster's University and the little girlies grabbed some dolls and snuggled up.  I loved it, for the short while it lasted.

The first Saturday we were there, we went up to the University of Florida's campus (Marc's school) to check out the pre-game tailgating and festivities, especially because it was their homecoming game.  Right before we were about to leave, a nice lady came up and just gave us two free tickets!  Ryan and Marc took the opportunity to go check it out, and Michelle and I headed back home with the kids.  We were glad they got to go since Marc goes to the school and hasn't been to a game yet, and Ryan loves college football.

On Veteran's Day, we went to a local park that was having a big celebration.  There were three different helicopters there, lot's of military people, skydivers with flags and colored smoke, and a presentation (that we didn't stay for because the kids wouldn't have lasted.)  It was really cool to actually have something to go celebrate the holiday.  The only downfall was that we had to park around a bunch of fire ant hills.  I looked down and my feet/flip flops were covered in fire ants! They were all Bennett's pants and all in our car. It was crazy.  But luckily I only got two bites and we were able to kill the rest that got in.

Another fun activity we did while in Florida was searching for shark teeth.  We heard that there was a stream where you could go sifting through it and find a bunch of super old shark teeth that were really tiny.  We actually did find shark teeth... and Marc even found 2 or 3 big ones too (forgot to get a pic of those).  It was a fun, different thing to do and the kids loved getting into the water.  

This is Lucy laughing, not screaming, fyi.

Claire spent the whole excursion like this.  Such a little snuggle bug.

That same day, we were outside at the Rasmussen's house and everyone was looking around for lizards.  They found one (apparently not too hard to find) and he got a nice grip on Marc's finger!  I'm not a fan of lizards in general but ever since I found a huge one on my pillow in my hotel in Africa and then wasn't able to catch/find it before going to bed, I have nightmares about them.

We also went to the mall real quick and Ryan and I just laughed the whole time at how much Lucy likes to shop.  That girl loves going through clothing stores and will literally run from rack to rack pushing the hangers aside, one by one, and picking up the things she likes and putting back the ones she doesn't.  This trip, she even took her shoes off and carried things with her back and forth through the store.  She totally ignored me and Ryan and just shopped and got really mad if we tried to help her/stop her/put her shoes back on.  It was so funny.

She shopped and then immediately dropped in the car on the way home. :)

So, as you can see, we didn't have any fun in Florida.... ;)