Florida 2012

It's been almost a month since we had our vacation in Florida. So much has happened since then that it's hard to remember all the details that I would normally blog about. As soon as we came back, I spent a lot of my time trying to get my Papa to the right doctors and making sure he was well taken care of. I miss him so much. I still can't believe he's gone and it makes me so sad to think he'll never come on a family adventure with us again. We did so many things that included Nana and Papa; The Polar Express, 4th of July Parade, Florida, Santa Land in Laconia, Clark's Trading Post, the zoo, the list goes on... my heart just aches.

Even though Papa was sick and couldn't go to Florida this year (not that Nana wanted to), Ted, myself, Eliot, Emily & Derek took a vacation to the Orlando area. Our cousins, Lois & Shelby came and stayed with us for a couple of nights. Just like last time, Eliot took quite the liking to Shelby. She's all he wanted! He kept calling her 'that girl' "Where'd that girl go?"

I took Shelby's senior pictures and we all went to a petting zoo together which was actually quite cool. Eliot (and myself and Ted) got to milk a cow (her name was Sweet Lips). We all chased and caught chickens (and Ted caught a duck too). We held baby chicks and baby ducks, we went on a tractor hay ride, and got to touch and play with other cool animals too.


Then, of course, there were days by the pool. We had pretty good weather this year for most of our trip. If Eliot had it his way, we would have stayed in that pool the entire week.



Alas, we went to Disney's Wild Animal Kingdom. The best part of that was the open air safari ride. We got to see animals in the 'wild' such as hippos and cheetahs, giraffes, and elephants. It was definitely the coolest part. The not-so-cool part was the waiting in line. We had to wait about 30 minutes in line for each thing we did-- good thing we only did about 3 things. All in all, I think we all agreed that the petting zoo place was overall a better experience than Disney's Wild Animal Kingdom-- and 1/3 of the price too. Another moment at the Animal Kingdom, though, was standing in line waiting to meet Eeyore. We all know how Eliot's been attached to his Eeyore stuffed animal (a little less lately). He has collected 3 Eeyores and one puppy on a string and he calls them his cousins "Mom, can you make sure you bring up my cousins when you get up?" He's so cute. Anyway, him meeting Eeyore was beyond adorable. It was like he was star-struck. He couldn't believe he was meeting the REAL Eeyore! So sweet!