Trip to Forida!

Thomas' marathon stomach bug had infected Mommy, and seriously threatened our only chance to get to Florida at all for the summer.  We ended up having to make the very hard choice to brave the venture without Tara!(  (Who got better while Thomas and I were away, and seemed to make the most of the time catching up with some friends - and, of course, work.)

 We had a picnic lunch on the way down, at about Lake City.  Thomas was GREAT in the car!

 We were able to make good enough time to get to go see Grandaddy on the way into town.  Then the next morning, Thomas found a race car trophy that was my dad's.  I told him a little about it, but he wanted to bring to to Grandaddy so that he could explain it better.  Grandaddy was so pleased that Thomas was interested in it, that he gave the trophy to him.  A very sweet moment!!

 Thomas did a great job of entertaining himself, as well as us, when he needed to.

 And back a Grandmommy's house, he wasted no time settling right in!

 The breakfast table.  While we were there, they boy definitely made up for the stomach issues of the previous couple of weeks.  We could barely get him filled up.

 We went to the beach at Siesta (#7), where we practically had the beach to ourselves to start.  While we were out jumping waves, we saw a little fish jump, then a minute or two later a Dolphin jumped entirely out of the water, then swam along the surface for about a minute (about 40 or 50 feet from us).  After some sand building and a walk, we went back in for more wave jumping and saw what we now believe (based on the biologist that we later talked to at the aquarium - later) to have been a young marlin, swimming by under the water at about 20 or so feet from us.  Since I wasn't exactly sure what it was at the time, we didn't jump a lot more waves right then.

 We had lunch with Grandaddy a couple of days (2 whole PB&J sandwiches!!).

 Then Grandmommy took us to her library; where they have an amazing fish tank!

 It is a TUNNEL!!

 We went to Mote Marine Aquarium and saw their very cool exhibits ...

 took at least one silly picture ...

 and saw them feed sharks!  Afterward, we got to meet up with one of Bruce's hockey buddy's, who also happens to be a senior biologist and head of the shark research laboratory at the facility!  He gave us a special, behind the scenes tour of his lab.  Very impressive! Maybe more so to me than Thomas?

 Then to Lila and Bruce's for dinner, and to meet Bruce's mom, Delores.  Who had a great surprise for Thomas!  Thanks Delores!!

 Thomas helped clean out the pond ...

 feed the fish ...

 try out his inner (and usually quite well hidden) daredevil, both in front of the swing ...

 and on it!

 Then ICE CREAM!

 Time to head back home to see Mommy!  Thomas was very helpful in getting ready to hit the road.

And another "picnic" lunch on the way back.  This time a good bit of the trip was made in the rain, including lunch.  We stopped once for gas, Thomas didn't want to get out.  Then this one stop for the bathroom and lunch, then back on the road.  The boy was a SUPER TRAVELER!  I'm sure that having Mommy at the end of the journey was a very strong motivator.

All in all, it was a really great trip!  We missed having Tara with us, but had a pretty good few days of adventures.