Florida trip 2013 - Day One & Two

I was able to get a full week off work and we went to Florida, via Tennessee, to see Walker cousins and Uncle John and Aunt Diane. Xela and Aurora got home from girls camp on Saturday around two and we left just before six, after we had cleaned out and loaded the white van (it had been used to bring the ward girls home from camp).

We ate walking tacos for dinner, in the car, and headed for Tennesee. Keri and Gene live about half way to Crystal River, Florida so it makes a good stopping point. We got there around midnight, Indy time, watched two episodes of "Ironside" and when Keri and Gene got home from Walmart, we had ice cream, read scriptures and everyone went to bed.

Visiting after Monday breakfast.

Sunday we went to their branch, which is always an interesting experience. Keri taught the Sunday School lesson and I enjoyed her perspective on the priesthood. We had taco salad for lunch and then it was a quiet time: kids watched a movie and Eric and Keri talked which Gene and I were in and out of the conversation.

Before...

After! Kaleb made a cousin sandwich,
that doubled as an air mattress roll ride.

Monday we had breakfast, loaded the van, visited/played a little more and then we were on the road around noon. A nine hour drive ahead of us, which is made a lot easier with DVD players made for cars.

Enjoying lunch while listening to a cassette:
"You Only Live Once, but if you live right, once is enough."

The cassette mentioned above is something that Eric listened too long ago and really liked it. We hadn't listened to it in a LONG time and I thought the kids, and Eric, would like it. They did. The kids listened to it twice in a row.

They played a few things themselves before we got to the official Georgia boarder and then we stopped at the welcome center for a pit stop and a quick energy release. "Run down the hill kids!"

Running, kind of, up the hill after going down.

Nate playing in the grass after his run.

Aurora getting to the top of the hill.

After the quick run, it was back in the car and on down the road. One of my travel activities is to bring pipe cleaners. The kids enjoy creating different things. Xela, who had the calendar at this point, took a few pictures of their creations.


Graigry gave his glasses a make-over.
He had the pipe cleaners on his glasses until Sunday.

Notice Aurora's pipe cleaner flower on the screen.
She did drawing and coloring as well.

Glasses and a crown.
Nate is king of the front bench.

We stopped at McDonald's for a quick drive-thru dinner and finished our trip to Florida. I had put Pandora on my phone and we connected it to the van's sound system. We selected a family radio station and listened to what came up. Sometimes we sang with it, sometimes we gave it a thumbs down and moved on. It was fun to have a family sing-a-long in the car, with songs like BINGO, Lion Sings Tonight, Twist & Shout, and some Disney songs. We were blasting the radio as we drove down the dark street, turned on Citrus Avenue and into the Eagle's Nest. Singing with the family was my favorite part of Monday.

We got to John and Diane's around 9:30, exchanged hugs, got kids in bed and called it a night. There was work and fun to be had the next day.


The girls prep the Blue Room for bedtime.