Fun times in Florida

We did just a few non-househunting things while in our future home state of Florida recently. We definitely should have done more but we also had to do a lot of feeling trapped whispering on the hotel balcony while Emerson napped in our room (hotel room bathroom not big enough to fit crib!) and a decent amount of trying to eat picnic-style meals in our hotel room with one plastic spoon and half a plastic knife (the cutting half, luckily). Something about house-hunting made us not want to spend any unnecessary money on anything.

But I was going to tell you about all the fun we had. One morning we walked down the block from our hotel to the Glazer Children's Museum where Emerson was happy to frolic in a tub of balls and play with any other balls he could get his hands on. The child:adult ratio at the museum was approximately 200:1 and I think Eric and I were each technically assigned to chaperone an entire third grade class. It was CHAOS in there. We decided to join since, you know, we'll be back there pretty soon and it seems like a good place to play without worrying about a sunburn.

We also took Emerson swimming one evening once the sun was low enough in the sky that we were reasonably sure his flesh wouldn't spontaneously combust. He wore his new red swim diaper and seemed to love floating around the pool, winking at young women in bikinis as he passed.

Our major fun event of the trip was to go see my family in Orlando. After seeing one last house Friday midday we hit the freeway and arrived at Brett and Dianna's for an early happy hour. It just happened to be Brett's 30th birthday and we were happy to join in the celebration which included joining the whole crew - my aunt and uncle Bill and Mary Lou, my cousin Katie and her dude Matt, and my cousin Brett, his wife Dianna and their almost-one year old Lucy - at the country club for swimming for the babies and a delicious poolside meal. Eric finally got the Florida thunderstorm he had been asking for all week; luckily most of us had finished eating before the downpour began.

After dinner we all went back to Brett and Dianna's for some cake and presents and then a babysitter showed up to stay home with the babies so we adults could all head out to a local bar. I tried not to visibly cringe when I heard Dianna say she thought we would probably be back by midnight when all I really wanted to do was crawl into bed (it being about 8:30pm) but I summoned up my bar-going enthusiasm and decided I would just think about staying up late as a jump-start to getting back on Pacific time. Of course it ended up being great fun to be out and the bar had thick-sliced house-made pickles to munch as needed. Thank you, pickle gods.

I'm excited that we will be nearer to my Orlando relatives. Seeing them on this trip reminded me of how much fun they are and I look forward to spending more time with them.