Trip to Florida

Well, life has finally calmed down enough to tell you a little about our trip to Florida, in which we got to see so much of the Cook side of the family!

It all started the Sunday evening after Thanksgiving, in which we rode up to Boston and spent the night in a hotel. Although we (especially Emily!) love staying in hotels, this was really so we could avoid driving up from the Cape to catch our 6:00 a.m. flight. By 4:20 the next morning, we were out the hotel door and on our way to the airport.

Wrap a couch cushion in a baby blanket, stick it between the hotel bed and the wall, and what do you get?
A toddler bed!

The sun rising over our beautiful Cape Cod

After landing, we spent the afternoon and evening with our family, having lunch at Chick-Fil-A and a dinner of my Mom's hamburgers. The next day, we took a trip to the Regional History Museum so Emily could be briefed and I get a refresher on Florida history.

A little playing in the car while we waited on Auntie J.

I was NOT going to let this stone alligator eat my wife!

Sarah picking oranges with Grandma Vicky. I think I was up in the tree at this point.

Wednesday was a real treat, as we went to Dunnellon to see my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Faye. We all took a trip together to Rainbow Springs, a beautiful part of what I call "the real Florida."

Rainbow Springs

Somewhere it turns from Rainbow Springs into the Rainbow River

On the way home, Sarah got to meet Molly and Amanda.

The rest of the week had some great plans attached to it, but instead the strangest thing happened. By Thursday morning, Jacki and Sarah were the only people who hadn't come down with a stomach bug! So we all spent a day or two at home in recovery- fortunately it was a quick one. By Friday evening, everyone was well again and a dozen or so of us had a nice dinner together before we flew back home.

Panorama of sunrise on Lake Louisa

Sunrise the next day

Playtime!

Reading with Great Grandma B.

It was a great and refreshing trip. Although we were sad to miss out on a few days of fun, especially on seeing our good friends the Kerrs, I think the easy rest of a sick day may have been just what we needed.


Epilogue: you may be thinking, "it's a good thing Sarah didn't get sick." And you would be right . . . if. As it turns out, she only managed to fight it off until the day we flew home. I don't suppose the details are internet-appropriate, but let's just say that plane ride involved several outfit changes and ended with a diaper-only baby and some stewardesses I feel very sorry for.

Sometimes, rather than just giving us patience, the Lord teaches us patience.

Honeymoon Part 3 | Emily Sees Lake Louisa

Dave's Uncle Randy was kind enough to bring his Jet-Ski over so that we could ride around the lake Dave grew up on.  So for the last day away from life and Louisville, we saw Lake Louisa and the connected Crooked River.

The swamp on one side of Dave's childhood home is full of springs, and that water feeds into Lake Louisa, which is on the other side.  The water then flows through Crooked River to a series of lakes and rivers called the Florida Chain of Lakes.  It actually flows all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.  Though the water in Lake Louisa is tea-colored from all the cypress trees, it is actually one of the cleanest in Florida because of the springs.

After a nice dinner at Dave's sister's home, we slept and flew home to Louisville.  There life awaited us in the form of a clogged toilet and massive pile of wedding presents.  It sure didn't take long for the stresses of life to find their way back into our lives, but they are much sweeter when you go through them together.  We can still remember enjoying the trip so throughly and yet longing to be home doing what we are doing now: living life together.  And now here we are, making each other's dreams come true.

Honeymoon Part 3 | Emily Sees Some of Dave's Childhood

The son of a Peat Miner in Central Florida, Dave spent much of his childhood amongst two of Florida's great staples: Disney and Wetlands.  So we spent the next two days touring the mine, Disney's property, and some of the lake/swamp area of Florida.  We started with the peat mine, where Dave's father has been hard at work for nearly thirty years.  Here Dave got to re-live his summer days of operating the front-end loaded and show Emily a little of how it's done.  Emily also got to tour the operation and learn that, yes, one man's dirt and refuse is another man's treasure.  And that second man will indeed pay a lot of money for it.

We then toured Disney's property.  Although we didn't have time to justify spending 80 bucks each on tickets to the parks, there was plenty to see on the grounds alone.  The most fun part was the marketplace known as Downtown Disney.

On the way home Emily got to see another Florida staple- orange groves:

Honeymoon Part 3 | Clermont, FL

Some beloved friends, Raymond and Meghan Johnson, had served us to humbly throughout our wedding week and continued to do so by watching our apartment and even taking us to the airport that Monday.  We flew to Orlando, FL, and Dave's family picked us up and took us to his hometown of Clermont.  Once there, Dave's parents honored us with a party for all those who weren't able to travel to Mississippi for the wedding.

This is most of Dave's side of the family, minus a few who couldn't make it:

And this is Myra Barnes, Dave's Grandmother, with the two of us: