Florida

We spent last week in Florida -- a much overdue and much-needed break as neither Ken nor I has fully recovered from Bryn's hospitalization, though she's better than ever! We had great weather -- a bit of rain on Monday, but for the most part, we enjoyed sunny days and weather in the 60s. We flew down on Saturday; here Luke demonstrates the purpose of the doggy bag in the seat backs of airplanes:
Sunday we went to the outlets -- a necessity, as it turned out, because Ken packed two left shoes for his Monday meeting! Monday morning Ken and I left Bryn and Luke in his parents' care so he could attend a conference at the Breakers and I could enjoy some time to myself. It was too expensive to stay at the Breakers, but Ken found a new (three years old), all-suites hotel (now owned by Marriott) in nearby Singer Island. The room was beautiful -- one of the nicest we've ever stayed in. We couldn't make use of our ocean-front balcony, however, as work on the pool below proved too noisy.
It rained Monday afternoon, but I didn't mind as I was engrossed in the second book in the Twilight (vampire) series. That evening we stayed close to the hotel and didn't go back to West Palm for dinner; as it turns out, the 15-minute drive from Singer Island to West Palm takes you through some rough neighborhoods. Who knew there were rough neighborhoods in West Palm?? We ended up having great fish "burgers" at Bonefish, which is a chain restaurant. Tuesday we had beautiful weather -- low 70s, and I sat outside the entire day and read -- almost to completion -- the book I had brought with me. This was my view all day long:
Meanwhile, back in St. Augustine, Bryn and Luke could not have been busier with Nana and Papap. They went to the dog park; Ripley's Believe it or Not (which they said was too dark (and therefore scary); McDonald's; fed birds on the beach; and successfully completed a scavenger hunt at a nature center (get name from Gail). Unfortunately, Luke contracted the worst case of pink eye I have ever seen. By Wednesday morning, he looked as though he had been punched in both eyes as they were so swollen. Luckily, Gail was able to secure him an appointment at an eye clinic, so we spent part of our time on vacation at the doctor's office. We were told that the form that he has is not highly contagious, but on the flip side, Luke was prescribed a two-week course of eye drops. I'm writing on a Tuesday -- a full week since his initial outbreak, and he's still waking up to crusty eyes, or as he describes them, "eyes that are taped shut." Poor guy. Many, many thanks to Nana and Papap for not only caring for B&L for two days but for also keeping them so busy and showing them such a great time.

Luke spent much of the remainder of the trip in dark sunglasses but never seemed slowed by his pink eye.

We spent a lot of time this trip at the wonderful Swing park in town.


We spent a full two hours at the playground during our first visit there, and returned the very next day for another hour and a half. At one point Bryn tripped, and when I asked her whether she was okay, she replied, "Better than ever!" There's a new playground right across the street from Ken and Gail, too, and this last picture is from that park.
We topped off our trip with dinner at South Beach Grill. While waiting for our food, Luke commented that the wineglasses hanging from a rack above the bar "look[ed] like bats because they [were] hanging upside down." The kids were great on the plane -- even when there was a bit of turbulence and we had to turn off the portable DVD player earlier than expected. And Luke had to go to the bathroom but we weren't allowed out of our seats. When we landed in Philly, it was snowing. Six more weeks of winter lie before us, if you believe the groundhog. More snow is on it's way...it's a good thing we got away when we did.