As I mentioned in Monday’s post, I decided to separate my re-cap of the holidays into two sections.  Monday, I reviewed our visit to Chicago, while today will be focused on our time in Florida.  No worries, I won’t do an overview of every day of the week, but here were some of my favorite activities from our time with the family down south.

Three of my nephews and one of my nieces joined us in Florida for the holiday.  I loved seeing them all play and interact with one another.  While my niece is definitely the princess between them all (deservedly so!), she played every game with my nephews with no fear.  She is, without a doubt, just as strong as the boys.

Thanksgiving was wild and crazy – which I’m fairly certain is exactly how it’s supposed to be.  One of my brothers decided that he wanted to make everything by himself (other than a side dish and salad from my aunt) and from scratch this year, which is completely different than our usual ordering turkey and sides out from the restaurant down the street.  And I’m so glad he made that decision!  My Spartan racing, triathlon completing brother made one of the most unhealthy, tasty meals on record.  Add that to being surrounded by a huge group of family that I consider friends and I was as happy as a clam!

The day after Thanksgiving, we all woke up bright and early to go deep sea fishing.  A small group of us had gone two years ago, and we loved it so much that we brought almost everyone along!  To start off, I don’t know who the type A kid is of the seven that were there, but they all formed a line to be next to catch a fish from one of the two fishing poles off the back of the boat.  Props to whomever led that.  However, when I wanted to catch a fish, I had to join their line.  No perks for no longer sitting at the kids table.  Wtf.  It was so much fun seeing all of the kids with big ol’ grins on their faces when they caught their fish, and our fish tacos the next evening were extra tasty.  I hope this is a tradition we add into future years.

 

My aunt’s birthday is just before Thanksgiving and my sister-in-law’s is just afterwards, so we celebrated both with ice-cream cake.  (Yum!)  My cousin got two, small cakes, one that said, “Happy late birthday” and the other saying, “Happy early birthday.”  It was wonderful to take a second out of our holiday to celebrate these two fantastic mothers.

 

We also spent one day out on our family’s boat, where my father started teaching the little kids how to drive.  (Don’t worry, pops had control the whole time!)  I grew up going on the water as often as possible, and I’m having so much fun seeing the kids in my family growing up loving it, too.

 

Every year, Ray and I take one, short date night to go see the sunset before dinner with the family.  (Instagram followers already caught the picture below!)  It’s so nice to be able to take a second to re-connect with one another without work surrounding us, if even for a minute.  And, as usual, the sunset didn’t disappoint!

   

My sister-in-law grew up playing tennis and still plays twice a week.  I was privileged to see her play doubles with my uncle on one of our last days in town.  And they won.  Go team!

Ultimately, it was a wonderful vacation enjoying time in the sun with family that we absolutely don’t get to see often enough.  I already can’t wait until next year!

 

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