While I was down there, he was able to have quite a bit more time off than I had anticipated, which was why I didn't even scratch the surface of the pile of books I brought with me, but I definitely didn't mind at all. We were able to spend some time on Patrick Air Force base (which was so fun since I didn't know the babe during his days in the Air Force and I'd never been on a base with him before), tour the Kennedy Space Center, visit a manatee park, and go to Disney World for our second anniversary. We also spent a lot of time on our condo's balcony (ocean views, baby), attempted to spend an afternoon on the actual beach before we remembered we don't like the beach, attempted exactly one game of beach volleyball before deciding the lightening and driving rain were a bit much, and spent just about every night at a beachy bar down the road with the babe's colleagues. It was a great trip, despite the holycrapit'shot humidity and temperatures, and it was great to see him after so many weeks apart.
We were also given the opportunity to buy an older, used Canon EOS Rebel from one of the babe's colleagues while we were down there - BEST DAY EVER - so I took a ton of pictures. I'm loving my camera and loving the chance to document our family's adventures with more than just my iPhone.
This was our view from the balcony in our condo. The building we were in had private access to the beach so the beach didn't get too crazy packed, even on weekends (although it was definitely more packed on weekends). I mentioned before that neither the babe or I really love the beach all that much; in the classic mountain vs. beach scenario, we both choose mountains without any hesitation or thought required. I don't like the sand, heat, or people, but I'll sit on a balcony and enjoy the breeze while reading and looking at the beach any day. AKA: our little set up was Moore-perfect. Plus, when the daily afternoon monsoons would blow in out of nowhere and all the little people down on the beach would have to grab their umbrellas, towels, coolers, surfboards, and children and sprint off the beach for cover, I could stay put and watch the storms roll in and roll back out from the comfort of my balcony. Seriously, balconies are the best.
We spent the majority of a day at the Kennedy Space Center, touring the facilities and looking at retired spacecraft. It was pretty cool, even for me who doesn't necessarily have a huge knowledge of spacey things or a whole lot of an interest in it. Between the multiple buildings and spacecraft, the guided bus tour of the launch facilities, and the whole other building and spacecraft that was way far away on the other end of the bus tour, we easily spent the majority of the day there. And we didn't even play any of the games or look at any of the stuff designed for people with kids, AND we didn't have any time to watch an IMAX show even though both of us were easily the most excited about that. It was a cool experience, and we definitely got to see a lot and learn a lot. It's a pretty expensive admission fee at $40 per person, but it was fun and we were on a pseudo vacation so...oh well.
We also went over to a manatee park one afternoon, hoping to spot some Barbara Manatee and give me an excuse to sing Veggie Tales. It was free and had a tiny little boardwalk you could walk along the coast, although palm trees hid most of your views. We only technically spotted one manatee, but all we saw was her flipper sticking up out of the water as some crazy man completely illegally played with her in the water for over an hour. I didn't even take a picture because the effect of seeing a manatee flipper was totally ruined by the dummy out there playing with the endangered species. We did get to see a couple of dolphins swim by though.
Such a stud, isn't he?
Our second anniversary was Monday, July 21, and we decided to spend the day at Disney World. Because....why not? Neither of us had ever been there, although he went to Disney Land as a kid. One of us was admittedly much more excited than the other one about this particular part of the trip (I'll let you guess which) but once we got there we both definitely enjoyed ourselves a lot. It was hot as blazes and a whole lot of sweating was done, but it was also a lot of fun. Because we only had one day and time to go to one park, we chose Magic Kingdom to get the most classic, well-rounded Disney experience. Plus, it's not like I could do much at any of the other parks anyway in my current 7-months-pregnant state.
I really wanted a classic photo of us (and my pregnant belly) in front of Cinderella's castle...but by the time we successfully snagged a Disney employee who was willing to take a photo of us with our camera for free, we got the janitor who literally danced to the music playing over the loudspeakers while he took our picture. He cropped the top off the castle, he didn't get my belly, I'm in the middle of talking to him, and the whole thing is crooked. The babe looks good though. And really, after all that, I didn't care all that much about getting the perfect picture. We know what we look like.
But the rest of the park provided a LOT of photo taking opportunities. And since I was armed with my brand-new-to-me camera that takes legitimately great photos, I took about 7 million. I'll spare you most of them and just give you a highlights reel of our day.
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| on the ferry ride to the park |
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| Tom Sawyer's Island |
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| W's cowboy boots from his inauguration (at Hall of Presidents) |
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| Belle's house |
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| restaurant in Beast's castle, where we ate lunch! |
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| the top of Beast's castle |
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| I get to ride a clam shell through a bunch of live-action scenes from The Little Mermaid that sing? HIGHLIGHT. |
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| my childhood nightmare |
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| camel that spits water on people while they spend the day outside in Florida: brilliant |
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| Aladdin's marketplace |
It was a really fun day, and we got to see all kinds of things that made my inner child very happy. Anything having to do with Ariel was my favorite, but Belle comes in at a close second and getting to eat lunch in Beast's castle was the bomb.com. Plus, they have gluten free bread there so I was able to eat two mini carving board turkey sandwiches on gluten free bread that were absolutely off the hook amazing. Seriously, amazing. The babe ordered some fancy beef stew or something and when I let him have a bite of my sandwich he was incredibly jealous. I want to go back just for that sandwich.
I'd read online that there was a whole bakery at Disney that was gluten free, so I naturally made sure that was a priority. Halfway through the day when I decided it was bakery time, I looked up where it was and realized it was in fact at Downtown Disney and not Disney itself (Downtown Disney is nearby but an entirely different facility, where access is free and there's all kinds of shops and such, most of which don't have anything to do with Disney). So after we were done with Disney for the day, we drove over to Downtown Disney just for this bakery. We parked, we walked the whole thing, we didn't see the bakery so I looked it up again and saw that it is in fact closed. Yeah. It pays to look in more than one place when doing gluten free research I suppose. By this time the worst monsoon of them all had hit central Florida, and we had to walk all the way back to the car in it. I woke up the next morning with some serious congestion in my lungs, and no gluten free baked goods. Oh well.
Florida was hot and shockingly more humid than Virginia, but it was overall a really fun trip and I loved being able to be there for so long with the babe. It was also really and truly awesome to be able to be together for our anniversary and to get to do so many cool things during our time together. We're both beyond ready for him to be home and for life to be "normal" again for a little while before "normal" gets completely redefined, but in a very short time that will be the case and we can say goodbye to work-related travel for a couple years.
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