Our Tropical Florida Vacation

I don't know if you heard, but it WAS REALLY REALLY COLD IN FLORIDA LAST WEEK! Whole crops of oranges and strawberries were ruined! Countless tourism dollars were lost! Nobody could go to the beach! Grandma and Grandpa couldn't golf! Clearly the climate is screwed up beyond repair!

But we managed to kind of enjoy ourselves anyway. As we kept reminding my mom: 50 degrees is better than 10.

We left on Friday, Jan. 8, just hours after a snowstorm tapered off in Milwaukee. But of course, the weather was still causing a domino-effect of problems in other areas, and as a result, our flight from Atlanta to Fort Myers was 4 hours late. So we left Milwaukee at 2:30 p.m., and didn't get into Fort Myers until 11 p.m. Central time. But Elsa and Claire must both have gotten the traveling gene from us, because they did just fine, even after such a long day (Elsa went to preschool that morning before we left!). Claire slept on my lap for about half of each flight. Elsa didn't really sleep at all (just the last 10 minutes of the second leg), but she still made it to Grandma B.'s without getting too crabby. And there were no apparent ear problems for either of the girls—my ears were bugging me like they always do on descent, but the girls were perfectly calm. Like I said, they're born travelers.

The first thing the kids wanted to do on Saturday morning was open Christmas presents. Here's Carter opening his present from us, a remote-control Wall-E. We gave Mia a ball popper, because it's one of Elsa's and Claire's all-time favorite toys, and an outfit. From the Shaffers, Elsa got another Littlest Pet Shop playset to add to her collection, as well as some gardening tools to help Mommy outside when the weather gets nice. Claire got a cute little bowling set with stuffed-animal bowling pins, and her own "baby iPod."

From Grandma B. and Grandpa P., Elsa and Carter both got "the yellow truck that makes music" from Elsa's Christmas list. I didn't even know what she was referring to with that, but Mom and Don somehow figured it out and bought it for her. It's a robotic truck named Rocky who talks, dances, and does other silly things. I guess Christmas 2009 was all about the robots.

Claire and Mia both got their homemade Andys, to join the Anns that they already had. Ann is definitely one of Claire's favorite toys, so she was thrilled to get another smiley, big-eyed friend.

Once the presents were opened, we had to figure out how to occupy the kids during two days of THE WORST COLD FLORIDA HAS SEEN SINCE THE JURASSIC PERIOD, or something like that.

Sadly, this was as close as the kids got to getting in the pool. We've been telling Elsa for months about how Grandma's new house has a pool, and she could go swimming when we visited. But we had to go and visit during THE GREAT FREEZING SPELL OF AUGHT TEN, WHICH WE WILL ALL TELL OUR GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN ABOUT BECAUSE IT WAS SO FREAKISH.

Looks pretty bad, doesn't it? I'm not sure how we all survived in such frigid temperatures.

We did make it to the "hot pool," as Carter called it. The hot pool was actually the hot tub at the clubhouse. The first day we went, the hot pool was not at all hot (maybe it was so cold that it got flash-frozen solid at some point). Ironically, this made it the perfect swimming temperature and kept all the old people out, so Elsa and Carter had it to themselves and had a great time.

The second time we went, it actually was hot. I think that made it less enjoyable for Elsa, who really wanted to swim as opposed to soaking her aching joints after a round of golf. Oh well.

Another great source of entertainment while avoiding the UNBEARABLE ARCTIC CHILL was my new iPhone. Elsa and Carter especially like this game called "More Toast." You make virtual toast in a virtual toaster, put virtual toppings on it and virtually eat it. Believe it or not, this provides literally hours of entertainment for three-year-olds. If only Carter liked real toast as much as he likes the virtual kind.

They also drew a lot of cute pictures on Grandma's giant pad of paper.

Mia showed us how close she is to walking.

And Claire entertained everybody by waving a lot. The girl loves to wave.

Also, we ate a lot. I mean, a lot. I guess when it gets cold in Florida, that means you should put on weight to prepare for the coming Ice Age.

Daddy and Claire contemplate what to eat next.

We finally broke the cycle of eating and complaining about the cold on Monday. Bob had a conference call that afternoon, so the rest of us went to see the manatees. The manatees thought it was a bit nippy too, and whenever that happens, they like to congregate in the warm water by the power plant. So it was a perfect day to see some manatees.

Elsa and Carter loved the manatee park. They also each got a stuffed manatee as a surprise gift from Grandpa. Elsa named hers Spot, and Carter named his Frank. Frank and Spot the manatees. Of course.

Manatees break the surface.

Then we spotted this alligator, who was nice enough to hold really still for a picture.

Just kidding. It's not a real alligator. We all know it would have preferred Elsa. : )

Claire and Mia enjoyed the manatee park, too.

Claire sat on a slide for the first time ever.

Mia could not understand why she was unable to crawl up it.

Later, Grandma took Elsa, Carter, Frank, and Spot for a walk. (Manatees need a lot of exercise.)

Surveying Grandma and Grandpa's domain.

We were supposed to head home on Tuesday afternoon, but of course, that was when it was just finally starting to warm up. And the Shaffers weren't leaving until Wednesday. So after talking it over with everybody, I decided to extend our trip by two more days. Bob had to go home on Tuesday as scheduled and get back to work, but I changed my and the girls' flight to Thursday night. This gave us more time with the family and a few more days of sunshine. The drawback was that it was just me and the girls on the way home—no Bob to help me out. That would have been awful during a four-hour layover at Atlanta airport like we had on the way down, but fortunately I was able to get a direct flight from Fort Myers to Milwaukee on Thursday night. As long as the flight was direct, flying by myself with two small children seemed doable, so we went for it.

I'm really glad we did. That's a long way to go for such a short time, so extending our trip gave us more bang for our buck and our effort. And it really did get a lot nicer on those last two days. We still weren't able to swim in Grandma's pool, but we sat in the sun and enjoyed much better temperatures than we would have had back home. We also got in more playing with Carter and Mia and more chatting with the grown-ups. Which were really the most important purposes of the trip!

We had such a great time, in spite of the cold weather. And I want to send another huge thank-you to Grandma and Grandpa for allowing all of us to invade their small house for a while. They even went and stayed at their other condo so that Ellen and I and our respective gangs could all stay together. And they supplied us with roughly five times as much food as we required. We had a lot of fun and can't wait to do it again next year (hopefully when the weather is better). You guys can't wait too, right? : )