We had a plan to take Sadie and Kaden to Arizona for a few days. We were going to fly back and leave Sadie there, and Kylee and Rachel were going to fly on their own and meet them and they were going to have a girls trip with Grandma. It was a bit of a hassle because they wouldn't let us book our tickets the way we wanted because we couldn't book Sadie alone. She wasn't going to be alone at all, but they couldn't make their system allow that. So we had to book them all as one-way flights which are more expensive. 48 hours before our flight, we were walking into a neighbor's Christmas party and got a text letting us know the flight had been cancelled. It didn't say why. There were no weather issues. We assume it was just not a very full flight on Christmas night and they decided to just not have it. Or maybe they had staffing issues. Who knows. (Kylee's flight for the girls trip was still on, and Sadie had to decide if she wanted to come to Florida or go with the girls to Arizona, and she really wanted to do both but we asked her to come to Florida to help Kaden have fun. Kylee packed and was ready to head to the airport when they found out their flight was delayed and then ultimately cancelled... so annoying! But Sadie was glad she came with us obviously. And I was happy that Dylan didn't have to be home alone for a day after Kylee left and before we got home.)
We were bummed, but the weather in Arizona was supposed to be a bit cool and rainy anyway. But Ryan was not happy. He was very much looking forward to getting out of town to somewhere warmer. We couldn't find a way to make Arizona work with a different flight so he started asking if we should go to Vegas or LA. As he looked up flights, I looked up weather. There was a cold front with rain coming through the west so neither place had good weather. So Ryan said, "what about Florida?" It was late that night but I said I would check with my mom the next day to see if they were even available. Ryan didn't even care if we had to get a hotel or something. And yes, they had a few plans. They had Tom's grandchildren and one of his daughter's coming to see them, and they had someone renting out their guest room (they do AirBnb) later in the week so we decided to come and stay for a few days with them and then go somewhere else for an adventure. We thought about going to the Keys but that was a longer drive and we ultimately decided to go to the gulf side and see some stuff over there, like the shark tooth beach.
We were there for New Year's Eve so this post will be the stuff before New Year's and then I'll put the other days in the 2023 book.
Dec 26th we flew in, visited with Kim and her boyfriend and her kids, along with Jam and Mom and Tom. Had dinner at Longdoggers and Ryan and I stayed in a hotel close by and let the kids have a little sleepover. That was the only night Kim's family would be there.
Dec 27th I went on a fabulous run on the path by the zoo that was just down the road from our hotel. It was so fun (even if I was listening to MWMH podcasts and feeling vulnerable- I carried my tazer).
Then we checked out and went to my mom's. We took the kids including Jam to the zoo. Feeding the giraffes and birds is always fun. This is probably the first time I've been to the zoo without being dreadfully hot. The kangaroos were actually up and moving around instead of laying around the whole time!
Dec 28th beach and ice cream. I have to laugh because Jam's dad and stepmom didn't even send him with a swimsuit. It's winter, lol. So he was just in his shorts but of course he swam even though he said he wasn't going to.
Dec 29th I love running in Florida, especially when it's not so hot. So here's a picture from my run on the street close to my mom's house. And then we swam- actually the kids swam, it was not warm enough for me to swim. And then we went to the pet store. The kids ended up not having a good time because they just wanted to take a pet home so bad. But we had fun watching the lemurs and the fenic foxes.
Dec 30th more beach time (this time I put my swimsuit on, but I absolutely was not getting in the water). The beach was SOOO busy. We've been to this beach so many times and I've never seen it so busy. Apparently the holidays is a good time to go to Florida!
Dec 31st We said goodbye to Sugar and drove to the west side of the state. We checked out a couple beaches. Sadie just wanted somewhere fun to swim and Ryan and Kaden really wanted to find shark teeth. Caspersen Beach is the place to go. There were so many people out there collecting shark teeth. We thought it would be easy to find them but it really wasn't that easy. I ended up finding a good one, and watching Sadie swim, and then we decided to go check in to the Airbnb. Grandma drove separately because we are heading straight to the airport and she had to drop Jam off with his dad before she came. So we took her car and went to check in and go to Trader Joes. Ryan and Kaden ended up finding a few more teeth and stayed for quite awhile. Then we tried to find dinner and it was so strange. EVERYTHING was closed early for New Year's Eve. You would think places would be hopping on NYE but nope. The taco place we wanted was closed. The fish place we wanted was closed. And it was early, like 5:00. They all literally closed at 4. So we ended up at Chili's, which is fine. I guess everyone in Sarasota parties at the beach and bars for NYE.
Sadie wanted to watch Hunger Games so we got that set up. She stayed up REALLY late because she was Facetiming all her friends back home two hours behind us. And she was having a ton of FOMO and got upset. But it's hard to feel too bad being in paradise instead of hanging out with friends for NYE. She says she never wants to travel on NYE again. But mom and I went to bed pretty early so we could go do a long run the next day. I think I had 14 miles on my schedule. My mom probably ran 10, I can't remember. But we planned a fun run by the water.
