The Schoenholtz Family: We went to FL in February!

On Thursday February 20th, Jamie and I flew with the munchkins to FL! Dad and Louise had rented a house near Ft Meyers and generously flew us all down to visit. It was Emma's first plan ride and the kids had a great time!

Jacob was the most difficult to entertain. He is just too busy to sit still for that long!

We arrived late and Dad and Louise took Ethan in their car while Jamie and I took the little ones with us to get the rental car. We walked forever and waited for ever but the kids were SO excited about the shuttle bus that it made the experience slightly more tolerable.

Friday morning was bright and beautiful! We were like moles coming out of our holes after some brutal winter weeks.

The owners of the house had tons of pool toys and we spent most of the day with the crazies in the pool.

Guess who had to dive down to pick it all up...

There was a park nearby so we dragged the kids out of the pool and went to check it out. Ethan was pretending he was a newscaster but then the anchor desk quickly turned into a take out window.

One of these kids is bigger than the other...

On Saturday, we drove the less than 2 hours north to Englewood to visit Great Grandma Peg! The boys were exhausted from the drive and couldn't wait to lounge.

Emma spiked a fever on the way and got more and more sick as the trip went on. Jamie had to run out for Motrin while she took a nap on me at the pool instead of swimming. The poor girl was burning up.

Once the Motrin kicked in, she got back into the action a bit! This large marble that my Grandparents have always had was a big hit. It wasn't until this trip that I learned it's for darning socks! I guess you put it inside the sock while you sew the hole from the outside. Or knit. Or whatever. It's not something I'll ever do but that made the marble even more cool.

After a series of attempts, the silly picture turned out the best.

It was wonderful to see GGP, even if only for a few hours. We came, we swam, we ate and we left! One quick story, as we were leaving, I went to close the back of the rental and the whole plastic part of the inside of the hatchback came completely off! It was so darn funny. Jamie and I were laughing so hard. I was able to snap it back in but it was so unexpected!

Poor Ethan was stuck in the middle on some towels because his booster seat wouldn't fit.

On Sunday we drove out to Sanibel Island for some beach time! Another quick story: The parking lot was a pay lot and Jamie went over to pay. She put in $10 and then tried to cancel because she didn't mean to put that much in. Well, there were no refunds so we didn't get the $10 back and then the ticket printed out with the transaction canceled so it looked like we didn't really pay! I put the ticket on the dash anyway with a note but Jamie was very concerned that we were going to get a ticket for not following the rules. Did I mention it was a pretty long trip out there??

Ethan and Grandpa Cliff spent most of the time in the water looking for shells. There were tons! GC was the finder and Ethan the runner.

There was a pretty good drop off with a slight undertow but Jacob was content to play in the surf!

Poor Miss Emma slept through the whole thing.

Sunday night Jamie and I went out to dinner just the 2 of us! The food was not great and I was eaten alive by mosquitoes but we didn't care!

After dinner we walked around the Marina and found these cool party boats. I wasn't brave enough to sit in one for fear of getting in trouble, but my rebel sister jumped right in.

Monday morning was our last morning at this beautiful spot. It was so cool how the whole back of the house opened up into the pool. We ate all of our meals at that table outside.

Emma was starting to come around by the time we were set to leave, but it was a tough ride home and a really long recovery for the little lady. Not long after we got home, I fell ill with the same thing and missed 3 days of work. It took weeks for us to feel normal again!