Florida/Georgia/Pennsylvania

Spring break is here!  Yay!  One day at lunch...a mishap for Lee. No fun!

After Clark saw Lee's text about the lunch mess, Clark sent this sticker.  Haha. 

Before we left for our first of 3 short spring break trips, I grabbed some balloons for a renter.  She celebrated her 50th birthday with a little get-away with friends.  So fun! We left Thursday night after work, and I had week-long renters leaving Friday at 11am. But I had another group--the birthday lady and her friends, checking in at 4pm.  AHH!  Thankfully Teresa said she would take the job and clean for me. I left her a crazy, detailed list of what I wanted done and she rolled with it!  I haven't ever had anyone clean for me. Hopefully I don't have to worry about this in a future! But I was very blessed from God that it all worked out!

We saw one of Cal's classmates on the highway after seminary one morning.  We're curious about his Ely sticker!

Our first trip was to Florida and Georgia. We stopped at a Buc-ees on the way down. Shanna and Lee had never been. So at midnight we loaded up on Buc-ees bbq sauce and grabbed some over-bites too. 

Next stop, Ichetucknee Springs! I went here for a sister's weekend and have wanted to take my kids.  I got 3 of them here!  We enjoyed kayaking down the Ichetucknee River. It's so clear and beautiful.  We saw a manatee too! We enjoyed spotting fish, birds and lots of turtles and beautiful vegetation and trees. It's such a different experience than kayaking on the Shenandoah River.  Perfect weather.  We started at the general store and took a shuttle to the drop off area. On the way there people were talking about pets.  A guy said that his grandma had some sort of parrot that could mimic people's voices. After his grandpa died, the bird would call out the Grandma's name, sounding just like the grandpa. She got rid of the bird.  That would be a bit disturbing!

We then headed to the coast, about an hour and a half away. We did a couple errands before arriving at our condo rental....it's right on the beach!  Pinch me!  Wow, it was so cool to see the ocean and hear it from the balcony!  There is a storage locked down by the parking area with beach chairs and beach toys.  Bonus for us because I forgot our chairs.  And I totally forgot the boogie boards. Ugh. But we loved it!  We hung out at the beach, Lee and I went on a walk and then we went out for dinner.  The condo definitely needs some refreshing, but loved the location and the beds were decent! 

A pool too!  Though we never used it. 

Shanna and Haley made bracelets and necklaces at the beach. So cute!

Military helicopters. 

Dinner was at Landshark Bar & Grill. No bar for us! The table could have been cleaner and the key lime pie was a huge disappointment!  The food was great though. 

Lee bought these at REI--we had to go there to do a return. Sheldon texted us to be funny that they had THC in them...they don't haha. 

So gorgeous!

So disappointing!

Lee made breakfast!  We had tater tots too, haha. 

Buc-ees!!!  

We spent more time at the beach that morning.  We went down in the morning, then checked out of the condo. I realized that new checkins wouldn't come till 4pm so I asked the host if we could use the beach chairs and he didn't mind. YAY!  Also, right by the condo is free public parking. Bonus.  And after he said we could go to the pool area to use the pool and restrooms.  Also there is a hose there to wash off.  It was awesome.  After check-out, Lee and Elden went mini-golfing and Shanna, Haley and I stayed at the beach. I went on another walk. 

Gators!

This is the building.  We stayed at the one of the far right, second floor down from the top. 4A. 

We went to Old Navy after getting cleaned up, grabbed an Arby's dinner, then went to the Okefenokee Swamp....the wrong part!!!  Ugh! We had tickets for a sunset swamp tour and I drove to the wrong part.  I put the correct address in Lee's phone. But then I drove after dinner and just used Google. Ugh....sooo sad!  Thankfully they gave me a refund. But huge bummer.  Now trying to figure out how we can go on this swamp tour.....Maybe Christmas?

Cal call's Family Dollar "Friendly's". We found an actual Friendly!  We headed home. So sad. We stopped at a Dollar General---they are everywhere!--and got some ice cream. 

We arrived home at 4:30am. Lee and I brought stuff in and I put away almost everything except other people's stuff and went to bed.  It was nice to sleep a few hours before church.

Since we didn't do our normal home church and scripture study before church we felt behind. We had choir practice after church, then saw Barbara and Darlene at the nursing home, then our friend Mike Schill came to visit for about 15 minutes. He presided at our ward conference that day. We invited him and his wife Staci to have a late lunch with us, but that didn't work out for them. Elden and Lee had fun with a fire. 

Our Bishop, David Peterson talked about doing flips in his talk that Sunday, so Lee did a flip in honor of that. 

Double honor, Elden let Lee and Shanna teach him how to do a backflip and he got it!!!

Our second little trip was to PA. We left just after 6am Monday morning. We were so tired Sunday night that it was easy to go to bed early. We stopped at a French pastry and chocolate shop in Harrisburg called Frederick Loraschi. He is from....France! 

This is a new Italian bread they offer. It was amazing!  Spendy at $34.00 a "loaf" but wow, really great. 

I bought some chocolates too for Lee's team members. 

I told the owner's son that we'll be in France this summer. He said to look for these signs--they mean that they are some of the best pastry/dessert places in France.  And they have one on their building!  So fun.

We went on a little hike as well just outside of Harrisburg. 

These macarons were SO GOOD!

I wanted to take Haley to the Susquehanna Museum of Art...but they are closed on Mondays. We stopped by my parents to say hello and give them some macarons.  The visit ended up being longer than I thought as my mom was talking to me about in-home care and then I switched out the blades on my dad's razor. Haley and Lisa drew this for my mom and dad. 

Lunch and hanging out!

We went back to my parents to get a picture in front of their forsythia bushes as a request from my mom. We were playing Cover Your Assests when my mom called, but I didn't answer it as we were going to go back over for the photo.  Sadly my dad had fallen.  Thankfully he was okay.  We went over and Elden and I helped him up. I got him into his recliner and got him some water. We took the picture, grabbed ice cream bars and headed back home! Haley drove 2.5 hours which was awesome. It was a fun mini trip!