Christmas Vacation: Tallahassee

Tangential Preface: (wait, can you have a tangent before you get started with something?  But I digress from my original tangent...) My computer has been dying a slow and painful death for quite a while so we finally replaced it shortly before our big Christmas Vacation Trip.  I brought the new one with me to continue to blog while we were gone but it was much slower since the photo editing program I'd used previously, which I knew very well and let me edit pictures and create collages quickly, wasn't available on the new computer.  But I just discovered that I COULD put it on my new computer, and I just DID and I'm so happy!  And I was able to create collages for our visit to Tallahassee so you don't have to scroll through so many pictures (and I can still keep it all together in one post).  Hooray!!

We had a nice drive to Tallahassee from Atlanta, and the highlight was a stop at White Oak Pastures, a family-owned sustainable farm in Bluffton, GA.  We picked up a few things, used the bathrooms, and admired a bunch of little lambs near the general store.  Jack tried to get them to jump but I think they were too young to learn Jack's tricks.

DAY 1: It was just warm enough to go fishing on the beach our first full day back in Florida.  Ben's best friend (since childhood) and his family were also in town so they joined us on a day trip to St. George Island, with a stop for lunch at Mema and Papa's condo.  This was what Jack was most looking forward to on the trip: fishing with Papa.  By the time we left, Jack had gotten the hang of casting but, alas, he never caught anything.  In fact, the only thing that was caught in the two hours or so we were there was Ben's little flounder.  But we all loved being back on the beach and the kids had a blast playing so we were glad we went.  Since the fishing wasn't going well, we left a little earlier than we'd planned and had a fish fry back in Tallahassee (using previously-caught and frozen fish and shrimp that was purchased on the way back).  It was a great day!

DAY 2: That Sunday we enjoyed going to church at Ben's parents ward, which is the ward Ben grew up attending (and which my family attended when I was born) and the ward we were in the first 18 months we were married.  There weren't as many familiar faces as there used to be, but it was great to see a few old friends.  That afternoon we stayed inside, out of the cold.  We played games, watched shark videos, and celebrated New Year's.  We did some decorating and had a little party.  We watched a Netflix countdown, dropped balloons in the living room, toasted with sparkling cider, and ate brownies and ice cream at about 8:00.  Then we put kids to bed and Ben and I woke them up again to ring in the New Year at midnight.  They weren't as excited at midnight as they thought they would be, haha.

Can you guess which child decorated each sign?  Luke is giving you a clue.

DAY 3: The big event the next day was going out to a little farm owned by a longtime family friend.  He had a lot of citrus fruit that he expected to lose when a hard freeze was to hit the next day (it was SO cold!) and he wanted us to take some off of his hands.  So we went out and picked oranges and kumquats and also brought home huge lemons and grapefruit.  Ben and the kids got busy right away juicing oranges and lemons, so we had fresh orange juice and lemonade for the next couple of days, and kumquats and oranges came with us on the next leg of our trip.  Mmm!  While we were at the farm, the kids had a blast just sitting on the four-wheeler, taking turns pretending to drive.  And Eliza made friends with a stray cat that helped keep the rodents on the property in check.  She named him Oliver and she and Jack were really mad that I wouldn't agree to bring him back to Utah with us.  We had a yummy New Year's dinner with black-eyed peas that night.

DAY 4: Our last day in Tallahassee we took the kids downtown to the Florida History Museum, which had some really cool exhibits in it.  We saw real Spanish gold from the 1500s, a replica of a Spanish mission house, a replica of a steamship, beautiful and colorful vintage citrus crates, a mastadon named Herman, and fun dress-up and interactive things from various periods of history in a children's area called "Grandma's Attic."  The kids loved playing there.  We also drove the kids around at FSU (we only got out to take one picture because it was so cold) and we also went out to the engineering campus where Ben's classes were and Cat took a picture there.  We picked up some souvenirs at Bill's Bookstore (the FSU book store closest to the School of Music) and got home just in time for Eliza to help Mema put the finishing touches on a yummy apple pie.

One of the best things about being at Mema and Papa's house is that it's so fun to hang out outside, seeing the beautiful plants and animals and just playing.  Jack made friends with Bucky, and all of the other neighborhood dogs.  We spotted lots of birds and saw the family of white squirrels a few times; the kids enjoyed walking with Mema and Papa; and going for rides in Papa's wagon is always fun!

It was such a fun visit!