Juggling Our Way Through Life: Florida trip

We went to Florida this year for our family vacation. We drove there so took 2 days to do so. We spent the first day and 1/2 in Gainesville, FL where I used to live catching up with good friends. We stayed at Cat and Darren's farm and Cale was in heaven. He got along great with Noah and Izzy, got to feed some cows and horses and just loved hanging out. It was great to see my girlfriends too and finally introduce them to the kiddos. They had never met them before. Jeff and I usually try to go to Florida on our own for a vacation so we have not taken them yet. It was great to introduce the kids to some of my favorite girls! We headed to Ormond Beach on Monday, May 7th and stayed there through Friday. Then started the trek back home. We spent a lot of time on the beach while in Ormond Beach. Cale and Aiden were like little fish-I think they could live at the ocean. Aiden loved splashing in the waves and playing in (and trying to eat) the sand. Cale loved running in and out of the waves and building train castles with Jeff on the beach. The only bummer was that I got strept throat Monday night and was pretty much out of commission through Wednesday and Aiden got an ear infection so he wasn't feeling great. But we made the most of it-Jeff took the kiddos to the beach a lot while I rested which was great. On Thursday, we headed into St. Augustine for the day. Such a cool town with so much history. First order of business was to ride the trolley train through the town-it was awesome and Cale had a great time. Then we went to Castillo de San Marcos-an old fort and walked through there. It's right on the water and beautiful. Then we headed into Old St. Augustine to walk around the shops, eat some lunch and get some ice cream. That was a great day!

On the way home, we decided to make a trip out of our 2nd day. We stayed the night in Chattanooga and then headed to Ruby Falls and Rock City the next day. We had a good time walking around as a family and seeing the sights! Cale thought walking through the cave to see the falls was pretty cool and Aiden did great in the Bjorn. After that we headed back to St. Louis and got in early Saturday evening.

I will say it's exhausting taking 2 small kiddos on vacation, but totally worth it. We had some good family time, the kiddos loved the ocean and that was so cool to see and we just got to spend a lot of time together!