After two years of dreaming, we finally headed back to Florida. This time, we were going to spend a full week on Siesta Key Beach and kick it off with a night at John and Laurie's house.
Before I get into the details of our vacation, a bit of history on John and Laurie. Laurie and I have been friends for YEARS!!! Like more than 20 years. Wowza!!
We met when I was in Photography School and she was stationed with the Air Force in Spokane. We hit it off immediately and we always pick up right where we left off. We haven't lived in the same city in 19 years but you would never know. In that short time that we were friends and living in Spokane, we took a very memorable road trip. We drove my Little Red Tercel from Spokane to Fallon, NV to see my brother. From there, we went to Sacramento, CA to see my friend Shawna. Then, it was back home to Spokane. The soundtrack to that road trip was my Mom's new Neil Diamond CD. There was nothing like driving (way too fast) down the long desert roads into Nevada with the air conditioning (2 windows rolled down) blasting and Neil Diamond cranking "Coming to America" with two girls singing along. Really, it was the kind of road trip to go down in history.
Fast forward twenty some years, here we are just north of Tampa, FL, where Laurie lives with her husband John and their two puppies, Jaegar and Stella.
They also live with a large population of Florida lizards, which Oliver LOVED!
Oliver's cup-of-love for amphibians was flowing over with the lizard population in John and Laurie's backyard.
Even Kellan went in for a lizard pet.
Daddy loves the challenge of catching lizards as well.
Oliver is very observant and he was quick to describe the lizards reaction to being held by a large human. In short, there was a lot of mouth and beard flaring going on.
Daddy also taught the boys how a lizard will hold on to anything until they can get their feet on solid ground.
This included Daddy's ear!!
This is one of Keith's fondest memories of traveling to the south to visit grandparents when he was a little boys; lizard earrings.
Jaegar is the resident lizard hunter. He wasn't impressed with Keith's tricks and he would have rather just hunted lizards and had his way with them.
When you're in Florida, you celebrate the winter with snowy wine glasses.
Since the weather is the same at Christmas and in June, it's ok to bust out the snowy glasses at any time of the year.
John introduced the boys to the Stanley Cup as the Tampa Bay Lightning were in the final games against the Chicago Blackhawks. Oliver was hooked immediately, Kellan went along for the ride and Stella took full advantage of another lap to sit on.
Soon, Jaegar was in on the action.
The boys LOVED Stella and Jaegar.
The feeling seemed to be mutual.
After the boys were in bed after a VERY long day of travel, we continued to catch up on the patio.
Laurie and John were definitely the Hosts with the Most.
Then.... it happened.... Neil Diamond came at us through the speakers.
"Sweet Caroline" was sung by all!
Followed by, "Coming to America.:
Stella and Jaegar were such snuggle bugs on my lap and under their baby blanket.
We loved Jaegar!
We loved Stella!
It was such a great reunion with Laurie.
Keith loved giving the puppies some snuggles too.
As the night went on, the wine ran out and Michael Jackson was pumping through the airwaves. Laurie and I decided that the dance party had to be moved to the backyard. It wasn't long after this that we realized how late it had gotten, translated to the fact that we really aren't 20 years old anymore and then headed for bed. We had MANY more days to have fun together. Really, we must save ourselves for future fun.
HUGE thanks to Laurie, John, Jaegar, Stella and Backyard Lizards for hosting the Ham Fam on day 1 of our Florida Vacation. We had such a great time!!
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