We were in Florida last week so I have two weeks to cover now.
I'm happy and grateful to report that even though I was still feeling really sick on Friday the 28th of June when I last wrote, I woke up the next morning feeling almost completely well. (Seth was feeling better too.) This was a great relief to me since we were planning to leave Sunday afternoon for Florida. I was able to get laundry and packing done on Saturday the 29th and Frank made a trip to the store to get a few things we needed for our trip.
We originally planned to go to both hours of church Sunday morning and then leave for Florida, but since we had all been sick and might still be contagious, we decided to just stay for Sacrament Meeting. We sat out in the foyer again and we all wore masks. We came home and changed clothes and loaded up the car and were able to leave by about 11:00. That first day we drove to Florence, SC. It took longer to get there than we had hoped since traffic was really bad getting through Washington DC / Northern Virginia. We also had to stop more often than usual...probably because we were all getting over being sick...and we stopped for an hour each for both lunch and dinner. We did make it to our hotel without any problems, though.
On Monday July 1st we had breakfast at our hotel and then hit the road. We drove the rest of the way to our destination in Frostproof, Florida, arriving around 5:00 pm. I took a few photos of the sky on the way because the clouds looked amazing:
We also stopped at the Georgia welcome center where Seth & I got to sit on a bench and listen to Forrest Gump:
In Frostproof we stayed at a place called Shepherd Christian Community. They have camps there all summer but they don't have camps the week of the 4th of July, so they rent out their places for really cheap. It was a really phenomenal deal, actually. We had a cute little 2 bedroom 1 bath house that was probably built in the 50s and probably last updated in the 70s, which gave me flashbacks to my childhood. It was very clean and we enjoyed staying there.
Here is our little house:
There was this great tree with hanging Spanish moss right next to the house:
And across the street, there was a lake:
Bathroom cabinet that reminded me of my childhood, especially the countertop:
Seth had a room with cute twin beds:
And a closet that also reminded me of my childhood:
Jack and Jill bathroom (taken from our bedroom):
There was an eat in kitchen too, but I guess I didn't take a picture of it.
It was super hot and humid the entire time we were in Florida, but thankfully this house had great air conditioning and ceiling fans, too.
After we got settled in the house, we went to visit Frank's Aunt Linda and Aunt Myra. (They live together...both of their husbands have passed away.) After visiting with them, we stopped at a grocery store to get some items for breakfasts and grabbed some McDonald's for dinner and while we were on our way back to our house, a torrential downpour began which unfortunately hadn't stopped by the time we got there. We finished eating our dinner and waited for a bit of a lull before getting out of the car but we still got drenched getting inside and bringing in the groceries. That's kind of par for the course in Florida, though...it rains nearly every day and unfortunately afterwards it's not any cooler and it's more humid than ever.
On Tuesday the 2nd we went to a place called Bok Tower Gardens. Frank and I had been there once before...with Scott, when he was one year old. It's a large beautiful garden with a Carillon bell tower and thankfully quite a bit of shade. It was still very hot and we got pretty wiped out walking around but we did enjoy it. We were pleased that Seth seemed to really enjoy it too...he commented on how serene and beautiful it was. At one point, Frank and I got lost and ended up walking around the entire perimeter of the garden, and that really wiped us out!
(Just a statue of an alligator!):
Seth walking through the gardens:
First glimpses of the tower:
On the far side of the tower was this beautiful big lawn with lovely old shade trees and a gorgeous view. I could have stayed there all day:
Reflecting pool on the other side of the tower:
A gecko with a missing tail:
There was also a beautiful 1930s house on the grounds that you could visit for an extra fee. Bonus: it had air conditioning! We really enjoyed touring the inside of this house, which is called El Retiro:
The entrance foyer. The whole house had unique (original) light fixtures, terra cotta tile floors (from Cuba), beautiful windows, and beautiful carved wooden doors:
There were also lots of hand painted tiles:
The original 1930s refrigerator:
Original 1930s stove / oven:
This room was called The Loggia. It had large pocket doors on either side so that a breeze could come through the room:
Views through the pocket doors:
Living room / music room. They would have dancing in this room:
There were large sceened porches on either side of this room:
More living room / music room details:
Behind a door in this room was a spiral staircase leading up to the master suite. The owner would escape up these stairs when he was getting tired, leaving his adult daughter to entertain guests for the rest of the evening:
Hallway to the guest bedrooms:
The grandkids stayed in this room when they visited:
This large room was used by the owner's oldest daughter, who was often hostess for him:
The morning room:
Beautiful grounds around the house:
Seth walking down to a pond that was at the bottom of the hill. (Frank and I opted to sit in the shade and drink water while he did that!):
"Window on the pond". Frank and I got lost trying to find this. Seth found it and took us back to see it:
Beautiful sky on the way back to our house:
We got a few souvenirs at the gift shop and we ate our lunch at the cafe in the gardens. There was also a museum with a lot of information about the garden and the tower.
After resting at home for a while, we went back to Frank's aunts' house to have dinner with them and then we played a game of dominoes called Mexican Train with them which was really fun!
On Wednesday I went grocery shopping with one of Frank's aunts and a few of his cousins. They had planned dinners for all the family coming in for the next 3 nights and I went with them to help get the groceries and also to help pay for some of it. The city of Frostproof did fireworks on July 3rd instead of the 4th for some reason. The fireworks were shot off over the lake that is right across the street from Frank's aunts' house, so the whole family gathered there for a spaghetti dinner and then we walked across the street to watch the fireworks.
Frank and his dad looking a lot alike:
Frank's aunt Linda with one of her cute great granddaughters:
Frank visiting with his sister and a couple of cousins:
Kids waiting for the fireworks:
On Thursday the 4th we went to a place in Orlando called Discovery Cove. It was a water resort with a river, large reef pool with tropical fish and lots of rays, sandy beaches, an aviary, and other animals such as otters and marmosets. We also signed up to do a swimming with dolphins encounter. Included in the admission price was towels, lockers, sunscreen, wetsuits, snorkel equipment, and food for the day which included breakfast, lunch, and unlimited snacks. (It closed at 5:00 pm). I enjoyed doing this a lot more than places like Disney World because there weren't any lines (except to get in when we arrived...that was a very long line) and we were in the water a lot so we could keep cool.
Seth and Frank in the reef pool:
Floating down the river:
Otters:
Marmoset:
In spite of re-applying sunscreen several times, my shoulders got sunburned, but not too bad. Probably our favorite part of the day was the dolphin encounter. We got to meet and swim with a 16 year old female dolphin named Luna.
This picture has a great story behind it. After we finished the dolphin encounter, Seth texted his brothers: "Hey guys, guess what? I got a 16 year old girl to kiss me!" His brothers were all pretty intrigued and asked lots of questions and only half believed him. He told them that I had a photo of it that I would send later. We weren't able to get the photos right away so he kept them in suspense for a few hours before sending them this photo. Very cute!!:
Frank swam with Luna's mother, because she's bigger:
We got a few souvenirs at the gift shop here, too. Leaving the park at 5:00. It was starting to get really cloudy and by the time we got back to the freeway, another torrential downpour came along:
We drove back to our house and showered, then went back to the aunts' house for another family dinner...hot dogs and hamburgers this time. There were fireworks in Lake Wales (about 20 minutes away) but we were tired and decided the fireworks the previous night were good enough! Instead, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the lake across the street:
Frank's dad and some of his cousins fishing:
Frank's mom feeding bread to the fish:
Friday July 5th was somewhat quiet. We did laundry in the morning and napped in the afternoon. We had a yummy chicken and rice dinner at Frank's aunt Treva's house that evening with a lot of family. Since it was my birthday, I got calls from Scott and Tanner and Frank, Seth, and Frank's parents gave me cards. Frank tried to order gifts for me before we left but they were all going to arrive while we were gone, so he decided to wait until we got home. He did manage to order one gift and have it delivered to his aunt's house...a new computer bag. I've been taking my laptop to Seminary in a laptop sleeve and another bag to carry all my stuff. Now I can fit it all in one bag, which will be nice! Frank's parents also gave me two little slices of cheesecake, so I got to enjoy one of those that night.
Saturday the 6th was the official Bracken family reunion. We all met in a building on the same grounds as the house where we were staying, which was really nice and convenient for us. We had a big potluck lunch (Frank made a pretty great cheesecake) and then visiting and pictures.
The building had air conditioning but it didn't work very well with all those people there so it got kind of uncomfortable. In the afternoon I started to get a bad headache and felt dehydrated, so I retreated to our house for a while to drink water and rest in a cooler atmosphere. That evening we went back to Aunt Treva's house for more visiting and then went with Frank's sister Dawn and some of his cousins to get dinner at a little local restaurant. Seth and I shared a pulled pork sandwich and I got a root beer float because the water was gross (Florida water!) and I was a bit full after that.
We said our goodbyes to most of the family that night because we were leaving the next morning after church.
The next morning (Sunday July 7th) we got checked out of our place and then went to church in Lake Wales. Frank's parents and his sister Dawn were there too. We just stayed for Sacrament Meeting, then said our goodbyes to Frank's family and headed for St. Augustine. The traffic was pretty bad but we made it to Timo & Megan's house around 4:00 pm. It was so nice to see them and to meet Autumn finally!!
We brought stuff with us to make Hawaiian haystacks (except we forgot the pineapple but luckily Timo & Megan had some) so we made that for dinner and then Timo & Megan had some chocolate ice cream they shared with us. After dinner we all went to a beach about 30 minutes from their house which is one of their favorite beaches. They sometimes find shark teeth there and Frank and I both did find a few! (Mostly tiny ones.) There were a lot of shells there also...we didn't find any big ones but we did find a lot of smaller ones. The sand on this beach is full of tiny bits of shells. There was a lovely breeze blowing so it was very pleasant and beautiful and peaceful!
It is believed that this beach is the place that Ponce de Leon first sighted Florida, so there's a statue of him there:
Frank on the beach:
Frank looking for shark's teeth (Megan and Autumn also):
After a good night's sleep, we said our goodbyes to Timo's family Monday morning and headed into St. Augustine to do a little sight seeing. We went to an old Spanish fort called Castillo de San Marcos, which is the oldest masonry fortification in the continental US. Again, it was very hot and humid but the fort was very interesting (and the gift shop had air conditioning!) There were a lot of displays and lots of signs to read but we also went to a ranger talk and he covered a lot of the information on the signs so we didn't need to read them all. The ranger talk was quite long...probably 30 minutes or more...but he told the whole 400 year history of the fort in an engaging way and he was very entertaining! (He had a lot of pictures in an accompanying power point presentation as well.) I was pretty impressed that he was able to rattle off that whole presentation without using notes. He's obviously done it a lot of times.
A drawbridge we could see from the fort:
The fort walls were built of a stone called coquina which is layers of fossilized shells and it turns out that it's very, very good at resisting cannon fire because all the air inside absorbs the shock of the shells. Cannon balls would just stick into the walls without exploding and the Spanish would go out in the night after an attack and pull out the cannon balls and putty up the hole it left and the walls were as good as new!
The soldiers sleeping in these beds must have been pretty short!
The soldiers scratched a lot of words and pictures into the walls all over the fort. A lot of them were very hard to see. Spanish soldiers scratched pictures of war ships on the walls. Later, when the fort was in American hands, the American soldiers added American flags to the ships...I thought that was funny! I took a picture of this wall because you can see "Cleveland" pretty clearly. Someone from Cleveland Ohio scratched their name, native city, and the date on the wall back in 1880:
Up on the ramparts:
After we left the fort, we wanted to walk around a bit in the historic district. Thanks to Timo's advice, we found a free parking spot on a side street and we walked past some cute houses:
And a big restaurant which isn't that old probably but is built to look that way:
We walked over to an information center where there were some displays and a gift shop and we discussed walking around to see more of the historic district and to find a place to eat lunch but we were so hot and tired by then that ultimately we decided we'd seen enough and we walked back to our car and drove a while until we found a pizza place to have lunch. While we were eating, it started to rain but thankfully it was mostly done raining by the time we finished eating. That wasn't the end of the rain for us, however. We drove back to Florence, SC that afternoon and we drove through one storm after another...many of them with rain so heavy that it was hard to see the road or any of the cars in front of us. I'm thankful Frank was driving because he handles that a lot better than I do!
We did make it safely to our hotel, had a late dinner, and went to bed.
On Tuesday July 9th we drove the rest of the way home. The trip was long but uneventful. We got home around 5:30, got unpacked, and went to get some dinner. We were all tired and very glad to be home and looking forward to sleeping in our own beds!
Frank worked from home on Wednesday (July 10th). I spent most of the day regrouping and planning meals for the next 10 days or so. Later in the day, Frank went with me to buy groceries. We also took a few things to the storage unit and picked up some medicine at the pharmacy. That evening, I attended a meeting at the church with a small group of people from my ward to talk about some things we could do to help another member of our ward who is struggling. Seth also had a YM activity, so I stayed at the church until he was ready to come home. I've been trying to have him drive every day, so he drove to the church and back. (We offered to let him drive on our trip more than once, but he always declined.) Frank stayed home and went to bed since he was back on his regular work schedule and getting up very early! When we were driving home from the church, the sky was very cloudy (looked like a bad storm was coming in, but we didn't get a storm) and the sun was going down and it created this really amazing ambiant light. It was more golden when we were driving home, but by the time we got home it was more pinkish. I tried taking photos but for some reason my camera changed the color so that it looked really bright purplish pink. I mean, the photos look pretty cool, but the sky was not really this dramatic of a color:
These photos taken from the deck are closer to the real color, but not as dramatic as it really was:
Yesterday (Thursday July 11th) I did a lot of laundry and some house cleaning and organizing. Seth had a job interview at Roy Roger's so I took him to that. We'll see if they decide to hire him. A book I put on hold at the library before we left for vacation finally came in so I had Seth drive me to the library and back to pick it up. After we got back from Florida, we ordered a few gifts for me and most of them arrived on Thursday. I got a couple of books and stayed up a little later than I should have last night, looking them over. My boys also went in together to get me a copy of Jesus the Christ with wide margins, for taking notes:
Today (Friday July 12th) I got up pretty early and got all the finances caught up before going to lunch with my friend Rebekah. We went to a place callled Glory Days Grill because we are on "G" in the alphabet. It was pretty good, and it was great to get caught up with her. This afternoon I have been working on this post and now it is time to make dinner already. I am going to Girls Camp next week (starting Monday morning) so tomorrow is going to be a busy day, getting ready for that and doing a lot of other things too. I'm glad to be home, though, and getting back into my exercise and scripture reading routines. (I did keep up with scripture reading fairly well while on vacation, but I have time to do more now.) After Girls' Camp and Tanner's visit, I hope to get a lot more done on summer projects although clearly I'm not going to get as much done as I had hoped. It will be August by then, and time to focus on Seminary preparations.
It's been great to see so many of you this summer!
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