Florida Vacation

The first week in August Ella and I went to visit my family in Florida for a week. Ella did great on the plane. This was her fifth time flying and she is really starting to understand everything. She pulls her own carry on bag and even knows to take her shoes off at security. She understands the seatbelt stays on till we are "high in the sky" and that when we land the plane has wheels and can "drive us to the building". On the trip down she even got compliments from the people around us on how well behaved she was. That really got the trip off to a good start. Being pregnant I was a bit worried about the heat, but since my parents have a pool it was fine (no swollen ankles the whole trip!). Everyday the weather was pretty much the same around 95-98 degrees, with about 80 humidity, with a chance of afternoon thunderstorms. The weather forecast doesn't vary much this time of year. So needless to say I am so glad we had a pool. I'm not sure how you would survive living there without one! We spent A LOT of our time in the pool and Ella is turning into a very confident swimmer. She is very close to swimming on her own! She loved the water and spent hours each day in the pool. While we were there we also visited a state wildlife park called Homosassa Springs, where we saw all kinds of neat animals, a hippo, lots of alligators, manatees, flamingos, etc. It was neat for Ella to see in person all these animals we don't get to see around Michigan. We even got to watch them feed the hippo. I had never seen a hippo in person myself and was surprised how huge it was! The day we were at the park it was VERY hot, well every day was hot, but this day we were actually walking around. A lot of the park was shaded so that helped but to get there you have to take a boat ride in which is slow and places you in direct sun. I thought I might die at one point, luckily the boat ride was only 20 minutes! We also went to play mini golf at a place called Congo River, which has live fish and alligators. I also saw my sister and her husband and we all had a cookout on our last night there. Beth is definitely starting to look pregnant and we found out she is having a boy too. It was a fun week! Hopefully we can go back after our little one is born and Beth has her baby, I can't wait for them to meet!